


Spoils of War

by kanadka



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: (gone very wrong), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Branmer - Freeform, Cultural Differences, Dishonour Before Death, Earth-Minbari War, Espionage, Interrogation, M/M, Mutual Non-Con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex Pollen, Unreliable Narrator, Victim Blaming, Wartime, being neroon is suffering, victim shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:55:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka
Summary: During the Earth-Minbari War, the Minbari find one of Earthforce's early weapons prototypes.Marcus is caught and interrogated about it, and has to figure out how to string the Minbari along enough to keep himself alive, so he can escape back to Earthforce and give them proof of concept.Neroon may not be much on interrogation, but he's the only one available. Unfortunately, he's more concerned about his own personal axe to grind.They're both about to have a really bad time.
Relationships: Marcus Cole/Neroon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Iddy Iddy Bang Bang! 2020





	Spoils of War

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to the iddybang mods who allowed me the amnesty date <3 I am using it to once again play football in the minefield that is the Earth-Minbari War!
> 
> A note: While I've tagged CNTW, I will reiterate a warning for Rape/Noncon and mention that the content tags should be taken literally. Don't read this if it'll upset you, and remember that Neroon's a pretty unreliable narrator and also a massive hypocrite. (But for me, that's part of his charm :')) ) Anyway, this definitely never happened in the war.

The call is received mid-afternoon. _Nusa Shorhat of the Star Riders, contacting Alyt Neroon of the Ingata._ An information package is attached and flagged _urgent_.

Neroon knows Shorhat personally; this alone is an anomaly.

Currently, the Shai Alyt is elsewhere, conducting an organisational drill on the Wind Swords vessel Pluruto. If the Wind Swords cooperate (unlikely), he will not leave for another three hours. Given where the Pluruto is stationed, that means he will not return to the Ingata until tomorrow.

But this urgent missive is not addressed to Shai Alyt Branmer.

And surely it can't hurt simply to look...

Yet Neroon has a suspicion it will not be enough to simply look. Looking _will_ spur action, and this Branmer will not like.

As executive officer of the Ingata, Neroon is not keen on leaving the ship. He's done it before - Alyt-nali Kozorr is the next in command, and is competent and trained. But Branmer is never pleased about that when he hears of it, for two reasons. One, because the whole point of an executive officer is to have someone in command to remain behind. And two, because Branmer and Kozorr do not have the rapport that Branmer and Neroon have, or indeed Neroon and Kozorr. This is, Neroon suspects, a layover from Branmer's religious days: needing control when your back is turned, unlike the Warrior Caste's iron-strong reliance on the chain of command.

_Urgent._

Shorhat would not have flagged it urgent for nothing.

So Neroon looks.

Shorhat writes that her regiment - Vel'lakta - is aboard the Gorana after last month's reassignment, and were posted in hyperspace nearby the Human colony Pax 3 to monitor the movements of their enemy. (Shorhat adds further that the colony name is 'peace' in one of the Human languages - what irony.) Their reconnaissance showed that the Humans were on Pax 3 to conduct research, and given the readings of power consumption, that research is active.

Not long ago, Pax 3 opened communications channels to another enemy Human colony - Eta Durani 7 - and made intimations that the Pax base would soon move operations. The Vel'lakta prepared teams, exited hyperspace, and quickly wrested control of the colony from the Humans - after they concluded communications, but before they could leave.

 _This is where it got strange_ , writes Shorhat.

Pax 3 had been mostly deserted but for a few thousand Human soldiers. Dead, now, all but one.

Minbari do not as a rule take prisoners of war, though they are familiar enough with the concept to recognise when other races are doing it. Neroon knows the Humans do it. He's received word from the Anla'shok of Human misbehaviour during interrogations. He knows it first-hand, too, as he once tracked a missing Moon Shields regiment back to a small Human colony, to discover exactly how the Humans treat their prisoners of war. It wasn't pretty. It confirmed everything Neroon needed to know about Humans, and he made quite sure the rest of his reconnaissance team got the picture.

The Vel'lakta regiment has a skilled interrogation team that, ever since they stormed the Human base, has been striving to discover precisely what research Pax 3 undertook. They received no answers from the other Humans they had captured (who, once they had been sufficiently interrogated, were summarily dispatched). So now they are down to their last one, who appears to know _something_ , but will not divulge.

There are four skilled telepaths in Vel'lakta, but this Human has had some training in mental blocking. Whatever secrets he has, one of the Human telepaths must have locked them down. And for all that the Humans are a blight upon the sacred void of the universe, wretched insects swarming and delving where they don't belong or deserve, the average Human telepath is stronger than Minbar's finest.

There were no further answers until the Vel'lakta regiment had stumbled upon a laboratory dome.

Not much remained that had not already been destroyed by the Humans, which they had done immediately upon discovering that teams of Minbari were descending upon the colony. _It is curious_ , Shorhat notes, _that the Humans felt it more important to destroy their research than to flee in their escape vehicles, which they abandoned in the base's hangar bay._ This suggests that whatever the Humans were doing was both significant and classified. According to the Gorana's communication sensors, the Humans did not manage to successfully transmit any information to Eta Durani 7.

The enemy secrets from the laboratory dome upon Pax 3 thus now reside solely in the mind of that one remaining Human.

The Vel'lakta regiment combed through the laboratory for two days, and interrogated the Human as far as they could. They found only a single closed test tube of a pinch of fine yellowish powder, which the Human too appeared to fear.

Thus had this matter reached the Alyt-nali in command, Tsafain, who had the mystery material analysed in the Gorana's shipboard laboratory.

Since the Gorana is equipped with a thicker hull, the best stealth technology the Minbari possess, and enough ordinance to eliminate three star systems, she often goes into the line of fire. For this reason, she cannot staff Worker Caste, who are not to be on front lines, and the laboratory she possesses is autonomous. Initial tests in the laboratory could not make sense of the substance, and advanced tests take half a valsta to run.

A day ago, Tsafain took Shorhat as _tha'krennas_ , and during the night's rituals told her this whole sordid story.

Unbeknownst to Tsafain, Shorhat had been part of Neroon's reconnaissance team on the colony where they found what remained of that fateful Moon Shields regiment. When she heard the story, she recognised it as another possible element of the colony they found: further evidence of Human biological weaponry. And she knew to send this information to him directly - _not_ the Shai Alyt - and offered to take over the investigation herself.

 _Whatever this yellow powder is,_ concludes Shorhat, _the fact that it cannot be easily scanned or deduced suggests it could be a functional prototype, the last of its kind. A Worker Caste would know more, but advanced tests will soon finish, and we shall then better establish if we may bring a sample to Minbar for a Worker's further investigation. As Honoured Alyt, your advice and experience with this sort of weaponry in the hands of our enemy shall be much appreciated._

Shorhat-speak for _I thought you'd want to know._

Neroon sets aside the Shai Alyt's reservations about his executive officer leaving the Ingata. He _cannot_ let this go uninvestigated. He writes Shorhat a single line on a secure channel, _I'll be there within the hour,_ and goes to inform Kozorr he's being given the helm.

\--

Pax 3 is a sordid place: the atmosphere on the small planetesimal orbiting a dwarf star is too thin to sustain Human or Minbari life, so the Humans have constructed a series of domes accessible with vehicles and airlocks and a network of tunnels. There are not many domes - perhaps twenty, a further three unfinished. The Humans must have been in the middle of setting up camp when the war began nearly two cycles ago.

With hardly any atmosphere, there is little refracted light. The dwarf star is dormant and - judging by the spectrometry on Neroon's flyer as he sails into the system from hyperspace - has been nigh invisible for at least a million cycles. Thermal radiation is paltry at best. The only light comes from stars speckled in the void.

Neroon arrives with ten minutes to spare - he is nothing if not efficient - where Shorhat is waiting for him in the hangar bay, her fist held to her hand in a salute. Together, in masks, they find the airlock to the main dome.

Once they can breathe and speak properly, he asks, "Where is it?"

"The yellow substance?"

"The Human," Neroon sneers.

Shorhat, without missing a beat, replies, "Not far, Honoured Alyt. This way."

Inside an empty chamber, cleared of all equipment, is a single Human man knelt on the ground. His hands are bound with wire in the typical Star Rider fashion, which wrenches his arms by the wrists behind his back, where they are tied to an extended denn'bok, which in turn is firmly embedded within a drain pipe in the middle of the floor. No leverage, no ability to move.

There's blood on the floor and spattered on the walls. The Human's hair hangs in inky black to the chin, which sports a full beard, both on the chin, and on the upper lip. The Human wears only a stiff white coat, knee-length. It's ripped open and falling off the bony shoulders - the Human's pale skin is mottled with bruises in some parts and scabbed over in others. The coat is knee-length, and Neroon can see the fine long calves tucked under the Human's thighs. Both calf and thigh are covered with black hair, though sparser than the thick curtain around the face or the cushion around the jaw. The Human is naked but for the coat. Neroon looks at the Human's disgusting genitalia (also black-haired) only long enough to correctly identify his sex.

"He was a researcher?" Neroon asks.

"An infiltrator," says Shorhat. "Those aren't the clothes we found him in. Blood sample places him at least on the incident with the Del' Fi Na."

So he's experienced. "Who attempted the interrogation last?"

"I spoke with him briefly before you arrived, but the last interrogator was Dushik, Honoured Alyt," says Shorhat. "He was not much more successful than the rest of us. If you would like a report of what we have tried and what it has resulted in?"

"An excellent idea," says Neroon. He prepares himself mentally. It's been ... a very long time since the mora'dums of his youth. That was his only experience with interrogation methods, or their like - the training the Warrior Caste academies use. The Moon Shields academy he studied with was no better - his memories from that time mostly involve his studies, his friends, and his rivalries. Neroon could fly like few others, he had experience in tactics both in simulation and in practice, but interrogation was something else. The Star Riders had a whole separate regiment for that.

On the other hand.

All of his memories of the Moon Shields academy... those friends he'd made, the rivals he'd bested...

Many of them were in that regiment the Humans had captured and experimented on. When Neroon had found them it was in a state of half death and no return. They died slowly, and painfully, and without dignity; and for those who had already perished, the Humans had not permitted them the dignity of an undisturbed death, either, but had autopsied and poked and prodded as they liked.

What the Humans sought was clear. A weapon, a tool. Something that targeted the unique Minbari biology. Had they found it? Is that what was in the tiny vial Shorhat had secured? Is this what it had all come to? Countless Humans and many Minbari, tortured and dead for a little yellowish dust?

Neroon has to know. He has to know what the substance is, what it does, how much the Humans have of it, whether that research had been completed, and how it all has to do with the other research that the Humans have done on the Minbari, in other laboratories on other colonies. How many colonies there are where Humans are conducting active research on their enemy.

If Neroon gets enough information, he can build a case for the Shai Alyt. Not only to kill the military bases of the Humans - as they have been doing - but also _all Humans_ point blank. Neroon is well aware that Minbari don't have the right to simply exterminate an entire species outright. But, he's also well aware that if anyone had a problem with that, it'd be the Vorlons. Or indeed any of the First Ones.

And there hadn't been a single intercession from any of their side during the conflict with the Dilgar. Now no Dilgar remains in this galaxy. Not a noise from the Vorlon Homeworld, not a single chirp.

Neroon thinks about the things he saw done to his Moon Shield friends in the Human colonies, the likes of which he had not seen outside anatomical texts. It takes active concentration to relax himself back into the cool passivity to which he is accustomed.

He would very much like to see that no Human remains in this galaxy.

\--

The Human sits up straight and takes note immediately the moment Neroon enters their makeshift interrogation room. He seems to be expecting someone else. His glance darts to the windows, where Shorhat is waiting, expectant.

"I need no interpreter, nor to rely upon Interlac," says Neroon. "I speak your standard tongue serviceably."

"Mmm. Bit of an accent," adds the Human.

His voice is light, cheerful. It pulls a sneer from Neroon. "You'll manage, I'm certain."

"So," says the Human. "Are you the big guns then?" Neroon lifts an eyebrow. "Well, you've got padding _and_ a cloak, mate. The others only had padding. Not as nice either. You must be their superior."

Clever and observant. Neroon will give him that. He remains unrattled. Let the Human guess away.

He slinks closer to the Human, click by echoing click from his boots as he walks. The Human looks up, puzzled. None of the other interrogators would have gotten so close, possibly. Not on their own. But Neroon can take him, judging by the size of his shoulders and biceps and upper body strength. And the Vel'lakta regiment probably hasn't been feeding their pet alien infiltrator. "What's your name?" Neroon asks.

"Oliver Twist," says the Human.

Neroon fishes out his hy'lerr device and does a quick search.

One entry through the Centauri net by that name. Four-hundred-year-old Earther literature. A lie. Not terribly surprising.

Though it has taught him something interesting: the Human's ability to lie is perfect. There are none of the usual Human tells. Shorhat had been correct - he _is_ experienced. Leave it to the dishonourable Human race to make a profession out of deception.

Neroon backhands him hard. The Human crumples, falling to the side. He struggles back to a kneel. He really is feeble, Neroon thinks. He crouches down low and takes the Human's frail chin in hand, a firm grip on top of the bruises he's already got over his mouth and split lip. The beard rustles against his gloves. He tightens his hold until the Human cries out. "We can do this all night," says Neroon softly.

"Don't think I'm daft enough to believe you really care about my _name_ ," says the Human. Then he spits blood in Neroon's face.

Neroon sighs. With his other hand, he calmly wipes off the spittle from his cheek and nose and flicks it away, back at the Human, where it dots his cheeks like freckles.

"'Sides, I've already been doing it for days now," says the Human, through gritted teeth, "what d'you really think you can do to me that your compatriots haven't already done? Hmm?" The Human laughs as best he can, his mouth squashed together by Neroon's grip. "I'm invincible!"

"They removed the poison tooth, they told me," says Neroon. With his gloved thumb, he presses into the Human's plush lower lip to expose the teeth and gums. "Funny. You have four spaces for them but only one poison tooth."

"Wisdom teeth," mumbles the Human. "Got 'em removed when I was young."

"That explains much," says Neroon drily. He releases the Human forcefully and stands. The Human spills backwards, grunting, and strives to regain his kneeling position. "Allow me to go first, to teach you _manners_. My name is -"

"I don't much care."

Neroon has to smile. "Now, now. I notice I barely touched you, but you falter like a child. I imagine they gave you nothing to drink? Eat?"

"Good cop, bad cop," says the Human. His grin is bloody. "You poor sods. This isn't something I'm a novice at."

"Indeed, you've run a few investigations yourself," says Neroon, loftily. "Ah - my apologies. Look at that, I've let something slip."

"Which one," asks the Human.

"Which one what?"

"Which one do you remember me from? Did you pull my files from the incident with the Flakara? Or was it the Del' Fi Na, the one where -"

 _CRACK_. In a split second Neroon has socked him across the jaw.

The Human groans, blinking, as he gathers his thoughts. He spits again on the ground; blood. "What was that for?" he asks. "Because you don't like it when I ask the questions? Because you had friends aboard those ships I brought down? Because you hate that I've managed to find out what the names of the ships were when you boneheaded bastards won't even talk to us about why we're fighting?"

Neroon bends to draw closer. "No, Human," he says silkily, "because I can." He waits until the Human lifts his eyes - light grey-green, like the windows in the temple Neroon never goes to. Then he bores his gaze into the Human's. "I want you to remember that I have all the power here and I can decide whether you live or die. I don't mind either way. Our people _will_ find out what's in that solution of yours, or you'll tell us. But we don't need you dead."

Yet the Human isn't terribly afraid. "You'd never let me leave alive. I've spent long enough fighting Minbari to know you never do."

"I'd give you my word," offers Neroon.

The Human laughs coldly. "Your word means nothing."

"All this time fighting us and you haven't realised a thing about Minbari honour," says Neroon. He strikes again - slaps the Human across the face so hard it rattles his jaw. Once again, the Human struggles back to his kneeling position. "I wouldn't kill you," adds Neroon. "But I could have your body broken beyond repair. I could have your mind flayed. I could ruin you and make you beg me for death. It's nothing to me. _You're_ nothing to me."

"Well, you're welcome to try," says the Human.

Neroon straightens. "You've an hour to decide," he says.

"I'm already decided!" the Human blurts. "There's nothing you can do to me. Try it - I've seen it all before! And I know how to get around whatever you've got. So just stop wasting your time, and off me now. Although, the secret of that compound your people took from me would die with me, too. But you lot are always on about your technological advancement, I'm sure you and your very big brains can work it out on your own. And if I'm dead, you'll have to, won't you? You've already bollocksed this up - I already know what you want from me. You shan't be getting it."

Neroon lunges, his hand lifted in a sharp, imperious gesture, ready to strike -

The Human doesn't flinch. He juts his jaw out for another.

Neroon lowers his arm, and the Human relaxes. "And what do I want from you?" Neroon asks.

"You want what I know about that compound your friend found," says the Human. "Which isn't much, by the way. I told her what I knew, and she didn't seem to believe me. But from the way she reacted... I think it's already affecting her."

Oh?

"Explain," says Neroon.

"Just the way she acted 'round me," says the Human. "Awful touchy, that one. Can't blame her. Compound's highly specialised. Bet you'd love to know what it does, wouldn't you?"

"Minbari too possess laboratories," says Neroon. "We can figure it out." They can, but they won't in time, without the Human's assistance. But that's a slight omission of truth to which the Human need not be privy.

" _Do_ you!" crows the Human nastily. "Then I guess I don't need to say a thing. But ... you don't have laboratories like ours, do you? Not quite. Not quite _staffed_ as ours are. With the right _collected material._ If you take my meaning."

Neroon can tell by the way the Human reacts that his own expression has darkened. He does in fact take his meaning. "Explain," he says anyway. His voice has chilled.

The Human smiles, broad and easy. "We've got so many labs, and I guess you don't like that, when the other side is well-armed, do you? You prefer it when it isn't a fair fight! Because that's _so_ honourable. Didn't you say something about honour?"

He knows, realises Neroon. He knows about other laboratories ... about the ones where the Moon Shields were taken, harvested, autopsied, studied, tortured, and when no further use could be made of them, flung aside like corpses. _Collected material._ He _must_ know. "You know nothing of our honour," says Neroon, his voice low and deadly.

"Oh, don't we?" asks the Human. "We've had our chances talking to a few of you." He gives a modest chuckle. "That is. Talking is perhaps a bit of a stretch. As I'm certain you've guessed." The Human leans forward on his knees and narrows his bright eyes. "Haven't you, my boned friend?"

Neroon says nothing. He allows his expression to speak for itself, and ordinarily that's enough to terrify any Minbari, and any Minbari is morally stronger than any Human. But where Neroon has seen scores of young acolytes shudder in fear, the Human meets his gaze evenly, with gleaming eyes.

"I meant more," says the Human, "that we've tried to get a solid answer out of you lot, and it's been like - well! It's been like pulling teeth." He grins, wide and toothy. "Or veins. Or bones. Or skin."

" _Has_ it," says Neroon. Has it really.

"If you have some sort of honour, as you claim, why couldn't you simply talk to us? And we could have avoided this whole misunderstanding."

"You slew Dukhat!" snaps Neroon - he could nearly laugh with the ridiculousness of it. "That is no misunderstanding!"

"What's a Dukhat," asks the Human. And then he grins. "Is it some kind of animal? Was it hunting season? It's too bad we missed stuffing and mounting him for our wall, a trophy for ickle Humanity, but I suppose there's still time -"

Neroon sees red. He cannot help himself - Dukhat, chosen one, leader, valiant sage of the void, an _animal_. "There can be no honour in your race," shouts Neroon. "No honour in a race that deals the way you did with us after your cowardly act! Lying, cheating, to sweep it under the rug! Your callous, needless murder of Minbar's best." Really, this is self-evident. Further proof that the Human he's talking with may be sapient, but not necessarily moral or honourable at all! "The Brakiri would not have treated us so. The _Centauri_ would have shown us more valour!"

"Yes, well, the Centauri are a little terrified of you," adds the Human.

" _And well they should be,_ " thunders Neroon. He looms over the Human now, irate, panting with the tension of holding himself back -

\- and the Human sits below him, patient, waiting with his hands tied behind his back to a denn'bok they've embedded in the floor, his cheek turned for another blow, blinking his eyelashes coquettishly.

Neroon yearns for it. His hand is clenched in rage, and it would be so easy. From this angle he could strike once and the Human would be at best unconscious or concussed; at worst, he'd inflict a brain bleed and the Human with his inferior skeletal density would perish slowly but definitively over hours.

That's what he wants, Neroon realises. He would rather death than give up the secrets that he absolutely _must_ be guarding. He knows something, and he wants the easy way out. The Human is much, _much_ better at this interrogation business than he is, and Neroon has played into his feints like a sporting match.

Though his fist begs for it, he denies himself the satisfaction. And it hurts, it _hurts_ to let that go.

But it's necessary!

 _Answers_. Answers will be more useful than any satisfaction he'd reap at the hands of beating a Human to a bloody smear.

Neroon whirls away angrily, as the Human behind him laughs and calls out jeers. About Dukhat, about Minbari, about him, about honour. Neroon pretends not to hear them, but every word cuts, and only after he has left the laboratory can he even begin to centre himself.

\--

" _Don't_ start," Neroon snaps at Shorhat.

She salutes and bows. If she thinks his interrogation was lacking, she doesn't say so. "There is some new information, Honoured Alyt."

Wondrous. If Neroon wants to tease out a solution from this mystery, he'll need solid information. And getting it through interrogation will be problematic. The Human's good. He gets under Neroon's skin like a splinter. "I take it the tests have come back?"

"Yes, Honoured Alyt. Good news ... and bad. The good news is that it is not only Minbari blood that this substance affects. The blood samples we took from the Human show that it would affect him, too."

Neroon frowns. "How is this good news?"

"Well, he could not use the weapon against us without it harming him."

But then, it is possibly not strictly a weapon and they are no closer to a solution than before. Furthermore, that makes it an element _against_ the case for Neroon's argument to his Shai Alyt that it does not suffice to wipe out the military targets of the Humans but all Humans. Even Neroon, in his rage, sees that clearly. "The Humans are beneath us," Neroon muses, "but I do not think they would stoop to destroying themselves at the price of destroying us. That makes little sense."

"They are Humans, Honoured Alyt," says Shorhat blandly. "They do not possess the reason of an advanced species like the Minbari."

The intelligence Neroon has seen from the front lines, from the Anla'shok, suggests as much. It suggests that the Humans are scared - good, they ought to be - and that they genuinely believe the Minbari will exterminate their race completely. They are fighting about as desperately.

Total annihilation is a decision in the hands of the Shai Alyt, for recommendation to the Grey Council. Should the Shai Alyt recommend it, with the right argument, Neroon has no doubt that the Grey Council would accept, even if some voices upon the Council have begun to murmur dissent.

Historical precedent, however, has typically resulted in Minbari warfare stopping short of total depletion of a race and ending instead in merely crippling their control. Letting a race think it anyway, however, tends to be advantageous to the Minbari - it adds to the fear.

But fear, in the hands of the Humans, seems to have a power all its own. A consuming, dangerous, unstable power.

"A fearful animal does not always act with reason," says Neroon. "And so, while it is expected that the Humans grow unpredictable in their desperation, this is not necessarily good news, especially when it relates to their resorting to the making of such weapons."

"I see," says Shorhat. "Then - the bad news." She does not elaborate.

Neroon frowns. "Spit it out."

"The substance... the substance appears to add a foreign component in high quantities to the blood samples. It's a hormone of some sort, it acts as an endorphin. Given its molecular structure, it binds to the psychoactive receptors. But I can't tell what it does. It could be a nerve toxin, it could immobilise, it could simply render unconscious, it could kill."

"Kill?"

Shorhat's nod is firm and but shallow, a sign of trepidation. "If it impedes blood oxygenation."

"Does it appear to do so?"

"Not in low quantities."

He studies her. "You tested your own blood," he realises. "You found it there."

Shorhat looks ashamed. "Every Minbari who volunteered testing has it in the bloodstream. We don't know what it's done to us, if anything. I have noticed feeling more distracted. But I have wrestled with distraction and poor focus all my life. It must have sublimated on contact with the air, so quickly that we didn't realise. It looks similar enough to our own that were it not for particular genetic markers, we would not have realised it was artificial."

The Human, too, spoke of having noticed its effects on her. Neroon narrows his eyes. It must be airborne; it must be present everywhere in the base. It is probably in his own blood, too. But he doesn't feel any different - unless it removes his control, somehow.

He _was_ rather short-tempered in the interrogation chamber, in front of the Human.

But Neroon knows himself too well to know that that's nothing new. He's never really had the best patience. And he has hardly been on this base, breathing its air, long enough to merit an effect. Shorhat has been here a few days now, with no obvious effect. 

"Very well," says Neroon. "Next question - what did you determine from your interrogations?"

"A few things. At one point he made mention of a codename. It matched a personnel identifier from the information we have collected, and given the encryption protocols of this base's security - extremely easy to crack - we have been able to identify him." Shorhat hands him a file.

Well, the picture matches. The Human with his long black hair, thick beard, and seagreen eyes stares dispassionately, unsmiling, from the file printout. Marcus Cole, Neroon reads. Born on a nowhere colony in a nowhere sector. Twenty-six of their Earth solar years - that's nearly twenty Minbari cycles. A child. He'd be barely old enough to graduate the academy, and yet he sports a full beard, fuller than any facial hair Neroon has seen any Minbari elder wear.

Like flies, Neroon thinks. They hatch, mate, and perish in the blink of an eye.

The rest of the details have been redacted. "Where is the rest of it?" Neroon asks, inexplicably keen to read more.

"That's all there was. It must have been saved in their system like that. That's why we thought he's an infiltrator, so it would make it easier for him to lie."

"And has he?"

"Oh, yes," says Shorhat, warmly. "He lies very often. There are no tells from what I can see."

"How then can you tell he lies?"

"He tells us each different stories. He's clever enough to keep them straight in his head. At first I thought he couldn't recognise different Minbari. But he is consistent in his lies with me than he was with, say, Alyt-nali Tsafain."

"Who obtained the most information?"

"Ah," says Shorhat. "That was I."

"And how did you do it?"

"Well," she says, uncomfortably. Her gaze shifts to the door behind which the Human is kept, then to the floor, in abashment. "I said if he didn't start talking I'd touch his _valrat_."

Neroon stiffens. "You would - _what?_ Why would you do that?!"

"I wouldn't really do such a thing!" she blurts. "I have will and honour! I was simply threatening! I would never consider debasement with an alien, it's unthinkable!" Shorhat is blue around the crest with her vehemence. "No, it's - it's because it seems to be a tactic the Humans use."

Again, Neroon frowns. "Really?"

She nods. "Tsafain mentioned it. It's - it's new information, apparently. Whether they've been doing it all along, we don't know. But Tsafain received information from an Anla'shok friend about four of ours who escaped their imprisonment and were able to make contact. Two Night Walkers, two Wind Swords. It - it didn't make sense to them, either. If somehow the Humans had violated their will or their honour, that would be one thing. But the body is a shell, venerated only after death. They cannot harm us, of course. The Warriors the Humans had attempted to debase knew this."

"And - and they let the Humans ...?"

"There was no letting about it," says Shorhat. She gives a helpless shrug. "The Humans bound them and stripped them. And, then, attempted to mate them. And it seems that they've done that in other imprisonment camps where our people are being held. From what those four escaped said, it appears to be a furtively-done thing. The Humans know they're doing something bad - at least by their own ways - they know it's something their superiors disapprove of, they think they are debasing us. They don't appear to understand that it doesn't have the effect on us they clearly wish. One ritual bathing later, the four Warriors were returned to service. I'm told they were particularly devotional in the rebirth portion." She scoffs. "I can imagine why. A Human's touch on their skin. What a delight to strip that away and have anew."

Even without the benefit of the bathing ritual, it's a damn sight better than being dissected alive, Neroon supposes. "Why would they _do_ that," he wonders aloud. The forced mating doesn't make any sense and he can't make it fit in his theory of fear and terrified animal. Why is this furtive and shameful, and dissection isn't?

"I don't know!" exclaims Shorhat. "The Humans are so weird. As loud as they are about themselves and their ways, there is still so much we do not know about them."

"So you attempted to mate him, then," says Neroon.

"I didn't," says Shorhat quickly. A little too quickly. "I made myself very ... convincing, I expect. I am the one who stripped him. Something about that really scared him, so I continued with the act. Eventually he saw through my lies. Somehow. I don't know how. And I relented, admitting ultimately that I would not actually _do_ it." She looks at the compound, a distant look in her eyes. "Perhaps had I been stronger... if my honour and will were better, firmer..."

That's revolting. "Minbar would never require such service from you," Neroon insists.

"Yes! So I realise!" says Shorhat with some anxiousness. She snaps back to attention. "I - I meant, rather. Honoured Alyt." She clears her throat. "Th-that I should have been _more_ convincing. That moment of internal struggle... it was not me. I felt something exerting a force on my thoughts... yet I could not break free... I therefore suspect the compound exposes the truth of our intentions."

"Minbari do not lie," says Neroon. "Not even to wretched inferior species."

Shorhat raises a brow. "Yet I was not intending to tell him the _full_ truth, until the compound made me."

A truth serum. How interesting. That would explain Neroon's lack of patience as well, if that is even a thing to be explained.

Neroon looks at Shorhat in a new light. I should promote her, he thinks. Meanwhile, he also realises something about the story she wrote him in her missive. Tha'krennas. Alyt-nali Tsafain. "Where is the rest of the Vel'lakta regiment?"

"Ah," says Shorhat. She's blushing again, so Neroon is getting more accurate in his aim. "Most of them moved back to the Gorana, once we had secured the colony and procured enough sample of the drug for the automated shipboard testing."

"And the other Alyt'rae-nali?"

"Sonnal and Trinor left yesterday. They were ... hmm," Shorhat is pensive for the right word. Her eyes are furtive things, their gaze dancing in all directions. "They were hasty to return to the privacy of their quarters. I believe Alyt-nali Fluriet took the next flyer out."

Neroon narrows his eyes. "And did Alyt-nali Fluriet take someone to her quarters?"

Shorhat blushes, bright blue along the central spike. "I... believe she joined Sonnal and Trinor."

A pattern is slowly beginning to form. Comrades, who have worked together in the same regiment for over five cycles. Who would never have admitted their feelings for one another without the impetus of an outside force. A chemical force. A truth serum.

"Three is sacred," muses Neroon, "but not for the tha'krennas rituals. You use a different ritual for that. And speaking of different rituals... how long have you known Alyt-nali Tsafain?"

Shorhat is agape. Now Neroon knows he has struck true. Alyt-nali Tsafain should not have said anything. Alyt-nali Tsafain ordinarily adheres to tradition. Unless something has let her guard down. "N-not long," Shorhat finally stammers. The flush has spread to a mottling on her cheeks.

"She outranks you," prompts Neroon, in a low and dangerous voice.

"Yes, very well!" blurts Shorhat, "she - she was hasty. She _should_ have suggested the shai'dem ritual but we didn't have any se n'kai fruit or anything that could be an adequate substitute -"

"More important," says Neroon with narrowed eyes, "is the period of meditation for the shai'dem ritual."

"We-ell ... well, we were very ... we had _great need_ ," she confesses, "and I did not deny her."

"You could not have," warns Neroon. "She outranks you. You were not permitted to deny her. Your consent was not required, and in so doing she risked violating her honour. That could strip her of her rank."

"With greatest respect, Honoured Alyt, you do surprise me sometimes," says Shorhat, defiant. "I didn't think you were such a stickler for the Religious Caste's insistences on the correct rituals in the correct order." The mottling on her cheeks has eased but the blueskin around her central spike remains bright.

"I'm not," says Neroon. And he really isn't. "But you're right that Tsafain should have known better."

"Please," says Shorhat, "tell no one, I beg you, they could make a case for it against her, I didn't dislike what we did - oh, truly I'm glad she suggested it -"

A-ha. Then it was yet another confession long in the making - another victim of the Humans' truth serum. "Not to worry," says Neroon, and he lifts a hand to quell her protests. "I intend to promote you in light of what you've managed to learn from the Human. So congratulations, Alyt-nali Shorhat, you may take whatever Alyt-nali you like as tha'krennas -" Shorhat is wide-eyed and aglow so before she gets too big for her spaulders he points a finger in her face. "So long as it's a Star Rider. You'll do right by your clan. Am I understood?"

Shorhat beams with glittering eyes.

"And don't look too proud," he says. "First, I want to know more about what you told the Human you'd do. You already said you'd touch him. What else?"

"Ah, you intend to follow up on that line of interrogation? That's a good idea," says Shorhat. The words fall out of her in a strange rush. The compound must still have an effect on her, it has loosened her tongue considerably. "Your stature is more impressive than mine and indeed more impressive than his. You would promise pain and pleasure, and he knows he is attractive, at least by his own races' standards - he's tried to use those wiles - he seems to think highly of his eyes. And his hair is - intriguing, dirty but intriguing -"

"Shorhat, I don't intend to take him as _tha'krennas_ ," says Neroon drily, "he's an alien, that's disgusting."

"O-of course not," says Shorhat quickly, directing her eyes to the ground, "you are Honoured of our Clan. You have honour and will. But he would fear that you would. In the Human way, with their Human interrogation methods. As a violation. All you would need to do is remove your belt with a lascivious expression and he might tell you much."

That's not a bad idea. Especially since Neroon's own interrogation methods are lackluster.

He might indeed tell Neroon much, especially if Neroon made it so that the Human couldn't shut up.

"An amendment to my earlier orders," he says. "Add a chair to the room. No - a bed. And give me the remaining sample of the substance. I assume you've completed all tests you intend to run with the Gorana's laboratory?"

Shorhat nods and hands it over. "This is what remains after testing; we have enough to run more if we wish. With more time we could synthesise more, if it is not dangerous. What do you intend to do?"

Neroon holds the vial up to the light. There is a subtle dangerous shimmer in the powder. "For now," he decides, "I shall return to my flyer to procure my atmosphere mask."

He returns a few moments later to the room. Only Shorhat is left outside it. "If the rest of the regiment has already left for the Gorana," Neroon asks, "how many remain here?"

"Only I, Nusai Hallier, Kharaaz, and Medaar, and a squadron of three cadets, Honoured Alyt."

Neroon nods. He looks at the compound in his hand and considers. He cannot tell whether the room they have sequestered the Human inside is perfectly airtight, but it is a good bet - there are airlocks to every door, including this one, and specialised vent connections at the junctions between wall and ceiling. "Will you follow my orders, Alyt-nali Shorhat?" he asks.

Shorhat salutes and bows as she has trained for cycles. "Yes, Honoured Alyt." There is no other answer.

"Without question? Into fire and death, will you follow me?"

"Yes, Honoured Alyt."

"Then I require privacy," says Neroon.

"But I have already seen a Human slaughtered," offers Shorhat. "Many times before! It is rather entertaining. And -"

"I will not debase him the way he fears I will," says Neroon, "but I will take the performance further than you did. You may wait in the hall, outside the door - I am drawing the blinds on the windows. Furthermore, you will close the door behind me and engage the airlock."

Shorhat blinks. She looks at the yellow powder inside the glass vial, which she herself handed over to Neroon, as though she regrets having handed it to him. But he requested it, and she is lower-ranked and could not deny him. Whatever she was about to interject dies in her throat as she comes to the necessary acceptance and closes her mouth. In any case, her interjection is not required. Merely that she follows orders from the chain of command, as she has vowed to do.

"Do you understand?" Neroon asks.

Shorhat salutes and bows. "Yes, Honoured Alyt."

This time, Neroon has a plan. He knows what they know (little) and what they do not know (sadly, much), and this is helpful in guiding his research. How does the compound relate to the other laboratories that Neroon knows through past experience exist? What is the precise function of this compound, and is there an antidote? What was the intended use of the compound?

And less likely to ever receive an answer, but no less essential a question: what was an experienced infiltrator like you doing in a place like this, Marcus Cole?

\--

"So you're back," says the Human. He nods to the bed, positioned nearby where he is knelt. "The bed's an odd choice. Thought they'd give me a chair."

"The chairs, as I am understood, are too lightweight," Neroon explains. It's not untrue. But it's not the reason he requested the bed. "Even you could lift one. In your state, however, you are most certainly not lifting the bed. And all the chairs had wheels."

"Fun to spin around in," says the Human. "Gets you dizzy."

Neroon snorts. "Don't give me ideas," he says. "You Humans have rather weak constitutions."

The Human grins. "I'm sure you've loads of practice, have you. At least with killing. Not necessarily with interrogation. You can manipulate me all you like," he says, "or try to, at any rate. But I don't think you'll be successful, not without tactics that by your own admission you won't employ. And even then."

"I need not," says Neroon. He lifts the vial of powder and shakes it; in the dismal light of the room, it seems to shimmer.

"You don't even know what that does," says the Human. He chuckles, nervously, and his eyes dart between the tube in Neroon's hand to Neroon's face and back again. "You can't make me tell you."

He is wary. There is a naked fear and apprehension in his visage that Neroon has come to recognise on the Human countenance. He can imply he's the better interrogator all he likes but there is no hiding something from Neroon when it's a matter of the hunt.

The Human knows. That it will affect him, too. And now he knows that Neroon knows.

This is all the evidence Neroon needs. He sets the tube down on the floor for a second and reaches into his pocket, to pull out the atmosphere mask from his flyer. Like this - Neroon crouched, the Human bound on his knees - they're eye to eye.

"What's that," asks the Human, pointing with a jut of his bearded chin to Neroon's mask.

"It's not for you," says Neroon.

"Well, go on, enlighten me, you might as well."

 _Enlighten_ him. A _Human_. Despite himself, Neroon cracks a grin. It's quickly wiped away, but not before the Human catches it and pales. Neroon's grin is evidently more terrifying than his grimace. An intriguing data point.

"I think you're one of the more experienced investigators in your race's military," says Neroon, "and therefore I think you will have already gathered the following information yourself: that we don't understand your ways, that it runs deeper, to the root of honour." He picks up the tube of powder. "This, then, is to break the morale of the Minbari, by making them a willing participant in your interrogations. By _making_ them talk."

The Human laughs. It sounds like he's gagging. The sentiment is mutual. "You really think highly of yourself!" he says. "You think we _want_ you boneheads?"

"I think you want to break us," says Neroon, "and I think that this far in a war you're losing, Humans have become willing to do anything to do it. And part of that anything involves playing it out on our level, with our rules. Even though you clearly cannot truly understand them." He fastens his mask on and picks up the tube again. He stands, unfolding himself in a graceful fluid motion. Now the Human looks up at him hastily once more, this time from the tube to Neroon's mask and back again. He licks his cracked lips to attempt to moisten them with saliva he's too dehydrated to have. "But what you don't know, or don't know that I know, is that the drug affects you, too."

"N-no - alright. Very well," says the Human. "Just - put that thing down. I'll tell you what you want to know."

"Oh yes," says Neroon, "you will." He drops the vial on the floor, where it smashes.

The yellow dust within sublimates and disappears in seconds.

The Human thrashes in his bindings but it does no use; in seconds the powder is nowhere to be found so it's not clear where he could hide, anyway. "What the bloody hell did you do _that_ for?" he asks. "I would've told you!"

Finally, a note of fear in his voice. It's delicious, and Neroon takes a moment to savour it. "When will you learn," says Neroon, "that I don't like lies, and I don't trust you not to lie." He studies the Human, feigning curiosity. "How long does it take for a reaction?" he wonders aloud. "Let's discover, shall we?"

"A _reaction_ -" the Human is apoplectic, wheezing his words out. "God, is this why you've tied me up, stripped me naked? All along? You know I had my doubts when your subordinate was in here earlier, she was a mite too friendly for one of you -"

Yes, Neroon really must speak to Shorhat about that. "All that time alone with you and she was clearly under the influence. I'm surprised she didn't let slip anything to you."

"Because _you've_ been so tight-lipped!? I've had the better of you 'til now, so this is what happens when you get salty about it, is that it? You tip the tables because you dislike being bested? You sore loser!"

Neroon shrugs. "It's an option, I'm exercising it. And it clearly has you angry." He stands to approach and in a few swift paces he is looming above him. He takes the Human's jaw in hand in a firm, nearly crushing grip. "Good. I too am angry, and while we've plenty of time to chat until I decide we've had as much as we can get out of you, I never have been known for my patience. So I'd kindly like to speed things along. Now, I know you would happily wait me out, as you've waited out the entire regiment and their interrogators. And they're more skilled than I."

"And _I'm_ more skilled than they," shouts the Human, a little muffled, through over-pursed lips.

Neroon releases him only to backhand him again. Part bluster, part fun. "Such insolence," he hisses. "What are the skills of an insect to that of a sapient being! You who have been space-faring for a measly handful of cycles, and we for generations -"

"Well, we're very skilled at _war_ ," says the Human. He tucks his chin into his shoulder to rub his jaw.

"We have a whole caste for that," says Neroon. "You are children playing at it."

"I really think -"

But whatever the Human is about to say, he stops; looks around. He exhales once, twice, frowning.

Instead, the Human says, "What you did was incredibly stupid, you know. That was enough for a small country's army." He sounds breathier. "Do you even know that that mask'll protect you?"

Neroon steps back, inspecting his handiwork. "Average size of that molecular compound is much larger than my mask's filters - I'll be fine. But you don't have that luxury. Feeling it, are we? And what are the effects?" His voice darkens. "Come, now, don't be _shy_ , we'd like to document its exact reaction. _For research purposes_. As you Humans are so fond of doing. You've set up _so_ many labs for your myriad projects."

"Whatever you saw hurt you, mate, I get that -"

Neroon could nearly laugh. "Me? No! My friends, my compatriots? Them, you hurt - you maimed, you killed!"

"Oh, like you haven't killed enough of my kind to satisfy that bloodlust? So you overdose me to retaliate, is that it?"

" _Is_ it an overdose?" asks Neroon mildly. "According to the tests the junior officer ran, your frail body can handle this. And I intend to have the truth out of you, one way or another. Even at this dosage, you won't die. I wouldn't have let you get off that easy."

The Human barks a laugh that turns into a cough. Then he doubles over forward, which must hurt his arms (if he even has any feeling left in them). "Y-your choice of words," he mutters. From this vantage point his hair spills forward and his face is nearly entirely hidden.

No hiding. Not any more. Neroon grabs him by the hair to lift him up -

Which is the point he realises the Human's condition.

Minbari could not, by any stretch of the word, consider themselves experts on Human biology and anatomy. They know how to kill them, and they have taken enough autopsies to have identified the major organs (to more swiftly kill them), and the locations thereof (to optimise the killing). But for the most part, they didn't even have to do that. Humans left traces of themselves all over the sector, blasting images of their own naked bodies from their meagre useless homeworld, their own languages, their music (or what they claim is music), their science (what meagre crumbs they've discovered). Human desperation reeks nearly as bad as this man. Humanity _longs_ to be known. It has rolled over and exposed its belly.

And it would almost, _almost_ be an honourable thing - after all, don't too the Warrior Caste open the gun ports to expose the weapons, that an approaching vessel may know what they're facing? Well, here are the Humans, presenting themselves! Though it seems less like they're doing it to warn others that they are weapons (Humans? With their soft little bodies and their lack of bone density and their ill-equipment for space travel generally?) and more that they are desperate for friends.

Reaching out for kindred spirits. Allies. (Lovers, even. There were stories about the conflict with the Dilgar and the growing closeness between the League worlds and the Earth Alliance.)

It is, therefore, entirely their fault that Humans have landed themselves in this mess. Reacting as they did to open gunports when it was _their own tactic_. Running when they realised what they'd done, lying and covering up their mistake, and only apologising after it was discovered that they could indeed be bested by the military might of Minbar. In peace, they were bombastic and loud. When they faced destruction and death, they crumpled.

But here is this man, facing destruction and death, Neroon himself, in all his Warrior pride and glory...

And the Human is aroused.

"What," breathes Neroon, practically stunned into stupor. He blinks, shaking his head. "What are you ..."

" _It's not for you, it's the bloody compound!_ " snarls the Human. His face is flushed bright red. (Exertion? Humiliation? A secondary sign of arousal? All three? These are the things Neroon _doesn't_ know about Human anatomy.)

"The... compound," Neroon replies, numb. He looks at the floor where the test tube shards have scattered. No trace of the powder remains. "I don't understand," he says. "Is this a side effect? Is this expected to happen when you administer a truth serum meant for Minbari upon a Human?"

The Human is in shock. A helpless, gaspy noise escapes him, somewhere between derision and disbelief. "Tr- what - _truth serum?_ " he stammers, "you - you think - you think this was truth serum? _That's_ what you thought this was?"

This is a reaction Neroon was not expecting.

All of a sudden Neroon has the feeling of once more being very in over his head. This Human is better than he is at interrogation, and it's moments like this that have Neroon crippled by that knowledge. He cannot freeze or blank. He must return to himself, feign whatever he needs to try and regain hold of the situation. It's possible, after all, this man is lying (Humans so often are deceitful) and this is all an act so that the man may recoup some face or stall for time.

But there is the matter of his erect valrat.

Neroon looks at it, affecting a clinical eye. It looks - well, dauntingly similar. It's revolting how close the similarities can be. Though unlike the Minbari valrat, which retracts into the f'hirs when not in use, the Human valrat remains external. (It is probably not truly 'valrat', then, but Neroon lacks a proper word, so his own will have to do.) It possesses a thatch of hair around it at the base, and beneath that, two strange-looking fleshy lumps dangle between the legs. Soft, it had been a small matter, utterly ignorable, no more remarkable than his thighs or his chest; erect, it is roughly the same size as any Minbari male's. The skin is red, just like the flush of the Human's cheeks on his face, which again is another point of similarity - the Minbari organ flushes deeper blue, from its ordinary light blue, as the blueskin on the head along the central spike flushes deeper in moments of passion.

There is a sort of protuberance at the top, where the top fifth of the structure flares like a heavily blunted arrowhead. At the very apex there is a circular opening, the flesh encasement around it having given way to a structure hidden beneath, where a dark slit lies. These are some differences; Neroon is incidentally happy to see them.

It's time for instinct. Neroon cannot let the Human know that this isn't exactly what he planned, lest the Human find some room to weasel a position of higher ground in their argumentation. Neroon must keep the higher ground at all costs.

"Truth serum..." Neroon finds himself saying slowly, "after a fashion. As I understand it, your species is quite accustomed to using ... _this_ sort of thing... as a threat to obtain favours. Intelligence. Position. And that is what I am after."

Neroon steps closer to the Human and grabs him by the jaw once more. This time less bruisingly, and though his touch remains firm he allows an element of caress into it. He's never been more grateful for his gloves; the thought of touching the Human's skin with his own turns his stomach. But he buries that reaction deep, and looks as deeply into the Human's eyes as he says, "You _will_ tell me everything I want to know."

"D'you know, I really don't think I will," says the Human.

"I really don't think you'll have a choice," says Neroon. He lets his hand drop and resists the urge to wipe it off in front of the Human. "Something tells me that you're going to get very desperate to tell the truth. I think we both know the way this affects Minbari even at a low level. You mentioned it yourself - my junior officer was touchy with you. Now, I know my junior officer - she hates you as much as I do, we both saw the senseless destruction in another colony where you'd captured Minbari, and defiled their bodies. Tortured them for information. And yet she would have touched you."

A thought strikes him. Shorhat and Tsafain, the three Alyt'rae-nali - that is ultimately unobjectionable, for Minbari to indulge themselves with one another, with or without the right rituals, but Shorhat's reaction to the Human... it really was right in front of him the whole time, wasn't it?

"Because this is scores better," mutters the Human.

Neroon lifts a shoulder, dismissive. "You're not in any pain, are you?"

The Human coughs. "Give it an hour."

"Oh, I think before the hour is out you'll be desperate enough for relief that you'll answer what I want to know."

"And _what's that_ , pray tell?" The Human's sarcasm is amusing.

"What do you know about the program of weapons, which that colony and this one had in common?"

The Human shrugs as best he can, given his bonds. "How do you know they have _anything_ in common? How don't you know we have a billion colonies all with their own secret weapons manufacture, and that's why we capture you? How don't you know that that's why we started this war in the first place?"

Neroon can't fight a laugh. "In the future, don't waste my time or your precious energy on conspiracy theory," he says, "but I'll grant you, such purposefully unenlightened nonsense is mildly entertaining to us."

"I mean it," says the Human, and the irony is drained from his voice, "how do you know there are only two of them?"

Neroon keeps his tone light, impassive. "Very well, how many _are_ there?"

But the Human shakes his head. "Even if I _knew_ , I'd never tell you."

"Then you admit they're interconnected?"

"No! Rather the opposite! I don't think they have anything to do with one another!"

"I find that extremely unlikely," says Neroon.

"I don't give a damn what you think," says the Human.

Neroon heaves a long sigh. "It may be helpful if you consider it from my perspective -"

"Rather not," mutters the Human, "'m sure I look a fright."

"- you Humans take prisoners of war. We have retrieved some of them. What's left of their bodies after you dissected them... and what's left of them after you've attempted to violate them."

The Human darkens. "Yeah, well, soldiers aren't polite," he says. A vague and annoying statement; besides, soldiers on Minbar somehow manage.

"I mean sex," says Neroon blandly. "We've learned enough about your language to know that you call it a violation, this - forced mating. But we've also learned enough about your language to intercept your communications. Surely some of you have realised that it doesn't have the desired effect on Minbari. I wonder if you've quite put it together. I presume, since you used it, it's a tactic that works on Humans."

The Human shuts up and straightens, suddenly dawning on something. "That's why," he says softly. "That's why you've done this to me. You knew all along what the drug did, and you want to give me a taste of our own medicine. Never mind that _I've_ never done anything like that to any one of your kind, I guess we're all the same to you, aren't we?"

"Oh, don't give yourself so much credit," says Neroon. (Although privately he does, the Human is quick and clever to have anticipated the use of the compound in his interrogation strategy. He wonders, idly, whether this will affect the nature of the truth that the Human is able to give, if he is more conscious of the effects.) "Allow me to sum up for you: the facility of dissection, for our biology. The incidences of violation - or what you think it is - for our psychology. And now this chemical laboratory, to fit together the missing piece to link the other two. All of your other atrocities have led to this one. Does it make sense to your inferior mind now?"

"If I give you the answers you want," says the Human.

"Yes?" says Neroon, leaning in.

"That's the reward you're going to give me, isn't it," he says. He pales; his skin looks sallow and shiny in the overhead lamps. "You'll - you'll rape me. And with PX-298, I'd be _thanking_ you for it."

Neroon's revulsion must show openly on his face and right through the mask because before he tamps down on his expression, the Human has already seen it. "Ah," he says, and brightens. "That's not it, then!"

No wonder Shorhat could not keep her composure at the prospect. Neither could Neroon, it seems. Well, little point in feigning now. "You're disgustingly right it isn't," snaps Neroon. "I'd cast you bare into the void of space first. I have _honour_. You and your chemicals shall not violate that. You can _try_ , but my will is strong."

"Right!" says the Human. "Can't say I'm disappointed. No offence, mate."

"Yes, well, I am the one with the mask. Your body disagrees with you," says Neroon.

"Can't help that, with PX-298," says the Human cheerily. "Nothing personal."

"I would, however, allow you to relieve yourself," says Neroon.

The Human shuts up.

" _If_ you gave me the information I wanted," he adds. "About the labs."

"I don't know," says the Human immediately. "I can't be sure - I don't know what facilities you mean exactly - but if it was Orion III, that's the one where you might have heard of the soldiers. Letting off some steam... as it were."

That's false. Neroon knows the system the Humans term the Orion system. Occupied by Minbari for the past half-cycle. There are no Human soldiers there.

Neroon steps closer to the Human. He puts his boot between the Human's thighs, and as much as the Human tries to shift them together, his exhaustion betrays them and he's not quick enough for Neroon, who tilts his ankle up until the toe of his boot is at the Human's genitals. "Try again. You have ten seconds to tell me the truth. Or it will be very painful for you. You know how I know? Because you Humans tried to use this tactic too, and were dismayed to find it did not work. I do wonder how much your priapism will increase the pain you'll feel when I kick you here -"

"Alright! A-alright, I know the one you mean, it's Vega IV, and _no_ , I don't know what they were doing there! I don't think it was related to this at all! I don't see how it _could_ be, but I'll admit I'm no chemist - I don't see how you'd get to this compound from those autopsies."

Neroon shifts the toe of his boot closer still, as a threatening reminder of pain. "And why not?"

"Because -" the Human sighs. Trying to quell his tongue, or stall. But it's futile. Neroon steps down, pressing with his boot on the Human's genitals and he starts talking again. "B-because they would have wanted to test this on healthy subjects! Look, isn't it obvious, there's no point in using it if it doesn't work on healthy Minbari."

The Human is not lying about that, Neroon suspects. He looks ashamed of himself, at the way he's blurted out the solution.

And there's something more. His hips are gyrating, only a very little -

Neroon realises the tip of his boot is still touching the Human's nude valrat. He's frotting himself against the black leather of Neroon's warrior attire. The Human looks miserable, but he doesn't stop, even as Neroon tilts his head to the side, sizing up the situation.

He must not be lying. He must be _desperate_.

Truth serum, after a fashion.

"Very good," murmurs Neroon, and his surprise has softened his tone to the extent that it alarms even him. The Human reacts by widening his eyes, with a sudden intake of breath, and he stills his hips, as though waiting for further instruction. His valrat practically leaps to attention.

It begs the question... might the man frot himself to completion on his mere boot...

"I am told your species is not as symmetric as we," Neroon says, an abrupt segue out of his own thoughts. "Is your dominant hand the right or the left?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," says the Human.

"Come now," says Neroon. "You have been nice. So I shall be nice. I am after all a man of my word."

The Human swallows. There is a large structure in the throat that bobs. Probably not the same organ as the superior Minbari xifra, but it looks uncannily similar.

"The right?"

The Human, despite himself, nods. His breath has begun to speed up, anticipating.

Neroon removes his leg from between the Human's thighs to walk around him to his bindings. The Human gives a frustrated bitten-off groan, with which he flushes in shame, at the loss of friction. Privately, Neroon is delighted. This is progress.

He unhooks the right wrist, leaving the left bound to the denn'bok, stuck fast in the floor. The hand falls down, as though numb, but the Human gets it around by twisting, lurching from the shoulder to launch the useless limb between his legs. He immediately begins to thrust against it.

Pathetic, thinks Neroon. "You were compliant enough," he says. "I'll give you some privacy." He turns around to face the wall.

This means, though, that Neroon is treated to the sounds of the Human's breaths, his harsh ragged pants, a quiet frictional sound of skin on skin, gradually yielding to a slicker, wetter sound. Neroon tries as best he can not to imagine it, but it sounds so very like Minbari masturbation that the resemblances are disturbing. The Human valrat really must act exactly like the Minbari counterpart, excreting plo'teth along the shaft as part of orgasm, quietly and consistently.

There is the scientific curiosity of a researcher, lurking inside Neroon's genetic makeup on his father's side. On his mother's side he is, as the sacred stars have always intended, entirely Warrior; but that paternal Worker aspect shows itself in troublesome times like these. There is an element of him that wants to turn around and see for himself, test a hypothesis.

Pike drills should have burnt it out.

He can nearly understand it, why the Human scientists tinkered the way they had. If the Worker Caste were allowed to fight wars, Neroon has no doubt that they would have done much the same thing: borrowed specimens of Human to try out weapons. To see what motivated them, what stimulated them, what hurt them, what made them tick. How best to use it all against them. A long torturous death is a dishonourable tactic, even if it yields efficient weapons at the end. The noble Warrior Caste of his mother's mothers' era would have never stood for that sort of honourless dreck.

But ... it has been a relatively long war ... ordinarily the Minbari would have won by now ...

Neroon waits as long as he expects Human stamina to last before he turns around. The Human holds his valrat in his hand, sighing in a pained manner. There is a white substance spilled over the floor between the Human's legs. If it is plo'teth, that's a good lot more than Neroon had expected. He frowns, curious. Part of the compound's side effect? Or the Human's nature?

He firmly quells the inappropriate part of him that thinks about variables and experiments. Neroon has a job to do.

"Better?" he asks, mocking.

The Human lets go of his still-swollen _valrat_ to balance his weight forward, his free hand on the floor. His shoulders shake miserably, as though weeping. "N-not even close," he mutters sadly. "It's like it did nothing. It's too bloody strong."

Neroon says nothing.

"You know, I am a bit impressed," the Human admits. "I said to myself, Marcus, this chap knows what it is already - it's a psychological trick, he's trying to get to you by getting you to fess up yourself - but you really didn't, did you? You'd no clue. You really did think it was a truth serum."

"A sensible conclusion. You Humans are too eager to know our secrets," says Neroon.

"At first I thought - you couldn't have known - but then I couldn't be sure that you didn't. So I'd had to switch tactics, assume you did. And there was just enough deceit in your words to fake it. Ah, that was well-played. I'd underestimated you."

"I do not lie," snaps Neroon. "That is a great dishonour. Punishments more severe have been exacted for less strong a charge on my planet. You watch your tongue, Human."

"Well, you've already got some information out of me," says the Human. He sighs. "By my count, I expect it's about time for me to die, isn't it? Because you lot don't let the people you interrogate out alive."

No. No, they do not. But Neroon is not done with the Human, not by far. There is more that he knows. And they will probably keep him a lot longer.

They could take him along, in fact. To the Gorana, where there are cells that are better equipped. To the Ingata, where the Shai Alyt could take a crack at him.

There is probably _much_ he knows.

"Perhaps we have underestimated each other," says Neroon.

"You're not just going to let me die, are you," says the Human. His valrat pays little attention to the wariness of his tone - it is already stiff again, and the dark slit at the apex is weeping some clear plo'teth-like fluid.

Neroon smiles. "But you've been so useful, Infiltrator Cole."

\--

Unfortunately, that is the last of the usefulness of the man for the next hour. He must have lied about it not relieving him, because post-orgasm, he has gained a presence of mind that seems unnaturally strong for a Human. His valrat is standing stiff in his lap and weeping whatever fluid it does, and on occasion he remembers it (most particularly when the dingy lab coat he wears brushes against it and his hips strain for more of the friction with the filthy canvas), but for the most part the Human somehow is able to ignore it.

Slowly, however, the Human is also ignoring his shame. "Tell me exactly how far along the research was on the compound," asks Neroon. "PX-298, you called it? I presume because there were 297 prototypes before it, all developed right here in the Pax laboratories?"

"Won't say," says the Human. But his hips shift up so that the head of his valrat touches the coat. His eyes close and he sighs and unbeknownst to him, it seems, his free hand wanders back to his thigh.

"Ah, ah," says Neroon. He extends his own denn'bok and strikes the Human on the back of the hand. "If you want that, you have to ask for it."

"Please, then," says the Human, and it starts as sass but quickly becomes quite genuine. His hips are still shifting so that his valrat frots against the inside of the coat hem. "Please," he says again, more breathily, "I've got to, 'm so -"

"You can ask for it," says Neroon, "by telling me what I want to know about the compound and the status of the project."

"Don't know - ah - don't know that!" The Human grunts once and thrusts forward, and his hips finally still. Beneath the coat the plo'teth spills, all at once, like a toy pistol. He pants, looking drained of energy, but the organ between his legs is no less waning in strength. The Human gives a miserable groan.

"If you want your hand," says Neroon, "you need to tell me what I want to know."

The Human laughs, derisive. "What do I need with my hand, the lab coat'll do just as fine!"

That doesn't sit well with Neroon. He uses the tip of his denn'bok to peel away the Human's coat so that it lays on the floor, exposing him. "Now you have no coat. Now what will you do?"

"Suffer, I take it," says the Human. "Just like you want me to, mate."

"Or I would allow you the use of your hand. If you would tell me."

"You never did tie it back up," says the Human. "I could just -"

And he makes the slightest muscular twitch, making to move.

Neroon is too quick with his denn'bok. Before the Human has even really budged, Neroon has whacked his hand away with a sharp swing.

"Ow!" the Human shouts, "alright, you've made your point!"

But the way his valrat twitched with the pain isn't a good sign, either. Pain is one of the more obvious ways to deny the Human. To inflict pain makes him want to supply answers so the pain will stop. If pain is associated with pleasure, he really must be far gone, and there shall come a point where Neroon can do nothing to hurt him which won't also feed into the chemically-induced need.

Then it must be absence. That's the only way Neroon will be able to affect the Human now - for he can't truly make himself come just thrusting into the air (...or can he? It's worthwhile trying to find out), he needs some sort of friction, whether it's his hand or the fabric of his coat - or even Neroon's boot.

"God," says the Human, in a miserable tone, "I really thought they'd make us immune."

"But they didn't," says Neroon. "How disastrous for you." He puts his boot between the Human's thighs, far enough away that it's not touching, merely a reminder. Waiting, taunting. "The more you give me," he says, "the more I'll give you. So if it's relief you're after, you know what's expected of you."

The Human looks up with murder in his eyes. The chemical hasn't dulled his hatred for Neroon. Nor, it seems, for all Minbari.

"Tell me," says Neroon, coaxing sweetly. This is gloating, he'll admit it. He doesn't have to be so sugar-sweet with the Human, but it's effective - a low dulcet tone seems to spur him stronger. And he's just come, so in order to render him desperate enough for some answers, Neroon needs to lay it on thick. "Be good for me," he murmurs, in a sing-song purr. "Tell me only a very little thing - a trifle, really. How complete was the research on the drug? It can't have been complete, you said they'd make you immune. I'll bet you'd love it if they'd made you immune."

The sharp toe of Neroon's boot inches forward until it's nestled under the Human's valrat, and then he directs it up, behind the two furry structures, until he reaches skin. "But you're not," says Neroon.

The Human bites back a choked gasp and he tries to cant his hips up to get away from the touch, but Neroon follows him up and the Human's cheeks are bright red above the line of his beard. Soon he's moving in such a way that has him riding the tip of Neroon's boot, his valrat smearing plo'teth over the leather calf of the shoe, along the instep up the front shaft and back again. His eyes slip closed, though he flashes them wide open again - he doesn't like closing his eyes in front of a predator like Neroon.

"So just admit it for me," says Neroon. "You've already said as much, simply tell me what stage they were at when they stopped, and then you won't have to deal with this little problem. Indeed, if you tell me the details, I could be _quite_ accommodating. Even one little detail will suffice." He wiggles the boot almost coaxingly, pleading, and bends lower. "Go on," he whispers, like a lover. "I'm listening."

"I'm sure you are," says the Human, and he leaps from his knees to his feet, _both_ hands free, and springs up.

Neroon is too close. The denn'bok behind him, he realises. He'll go for the weapon. Neroon leans forward to grab it, twisting around the Human, shoving him aside to get at the weapon, but no sooner has he done so than the Human's hand is at his face - and there, a sudden coolness tickles.

Too late, Neroon has grabbed the denn'bok. "Off!" he roars, and launches the two denn'buk behind him. Then he throws himself bodily on the Human to wrestle his mask back. But as they fall, grappling, the Human unbalances himself on purpose and throws the mask underneath his shoulder instead -

And with both his _and_ Neroon's weight on it, falling down, there comes a sickening crunch.

Neroon, lying atop the Human, and the Human exchange looks.

He'd been wrong, as it happens - _this_ is what the Human looks like when he's afraid. Neroon is in his space, clutched close against him, and the Human has just done a terrible awful thing.

"Now," breathes the Human beneath him, "now, will you kill me?" Though his eyes dart to Neroon's mouth.

Neroon lets loose a frustrated battle cry in the Human's stupid ugly face but it changes nothing. The Human is still gathered close to him, in an awkward embrace, his valrat stiff and weeping on Neroon's _thigh_ , like Neroon's raw ire didn't quell his arousal in the least, and Neroon's mask is broken and -

_And Neroon has been breathing in the compound._

He scuttles backwards off the Human who tries to control his breathing but fails. "What have you _done_ ," Neroon growls.

"Can't - expect me - not to try!" says the Human, even as he gets his hand to his revolting misshapen organ and begins to stroke himself. "God, fuck, of course I'd try. Ha-ah ..."

Neroon holds his breath and tries to cover his nose and mouth with his glove. Only seconds before, he remembers that he wore these gloves when he had the tube of powder in his hand and smashed it on the ground. He rips the gloves off and throws them aside.

He needs to find something that's had as little exposure to the powder as possible. Shorhat said - Shorhat told him the compound's molecular size, so his cloak would do - possibly - hopefully -

He exhales slowly, lungs burning, in a single breath, as he removes his shoulder padding. The Human is watching him, studying him. "Oh, god, I was right," he says, his voice thick, stroking himself faster. "At least you'll suffer with me - now that's satisfaction."

Neroon tries to ignore him, but the weight of the Human's gaze is palpable. He removes the chest piece, so that finally his cloak is free. Not the part that was nearest the ground, that part could have particulate matter - the part that was beneath the spaulders. This part he rips off. It was closest to his body and covered by armour, it can't have particulate matter on it! He ties the piece over his nose and mouth by knotting it around the spikes of his crest.

Hopefully it's enough.

It has to be enough.

The Human arches back and cries out, and his valrat spurts as he comes, gazing openly at Neroon's arms, his bare hands.

Bare flesh exposed in front of an enemy.

Shorhat, realises Neroon. Stars, what this must look like!

There's no one at the window, but Shorhat must be still at the door, and can hear everything.

Neroon strides towards the door and bangs on it. Quickly, while the Human is distracted. "Alyt-nali Shorhat," he bellows. "Your orders are to vacate the base at once. Return all personnel to the Gorana, effective immediately. There -"

Has been a containment breach?

Only for himself. But Shorhat cannot know he's lost control of the situation.

He could say there _will be_ a containment breach, that she's in danger, but that's a lie - there shouldn't be any leakage. And Neroon knew that before he broke the vial himself.

It's more that if this affects him - and at this high a concentration it probably will, because it appeared to have affected the regiment at a much lower concentration - he cannot have witnesses.

Or worse. He pictures himself, drugged out of his mind, begging Shorhat or someone else below his rank for tha'krennas out of desperation, the way Tsafain did. They would give it to him, because they couldn't not!

Because a higher-ranked warrior would be granted any request. That's why it would dishonour him to request it of a lower-ranked warrior. That's why it dishonoured Tsafain!

Not for nothing is Neroon an Alyt - he has will, he has honour, and he cannot under any circumstances allow an outside force to violate these. Not even now.

He looks back to the Human who is struggling to his feet and shuffling over to the denn'buk.

Stars forgive him, there's no time. He will have to lie. He'll do penance later.

"There will be a containment breach," Neroon says. "I intend to release the remainder of the compound on the Human. I cannot determine whether this room truly is airtight. Therefore, for your own safety, you, the Nusai, and the cadets are to vacate the base, immediately. Return to the Gorana."

"But, Honoured Alyt," says Shorhat, "what about you?"

"I have my flyer," says Neroon. "I have a mask." Which lies broken on the floor. "I will be fine. But I will need... privacy."

"And the Human?"

Is currently picking up a denn'bok. "Is going to give me _everything_ ," Neroon snarls. "This I vow."

"Very well," says Shorhat, though it's clear from her voice she doesn't like the sound of it. "Evacuation to the Gorana in two minutes. Please remain in periodic communication. Good luck, Honoured Alyt."

Neroon stalks over to the Human and the denn'bok he has in his hand, He picks him up by the collar of the lab coat. The Human's grasp on the weapon is feeble and he tries to swing it wide, to strike Neroon, but this is something so pathetically done and so easily blocked, that it's second-nature. Neroon throws him into the wall. "Don't touch that!" he bellows, "you're impure, unworthy!"

The Human hits the wall and crumples to the ground and lays there a moment, still. Another moment goes by without motion and Neroon almost wonders if he's gone too far.

But then the Human begins to stir against the floor. The hips, mostly. Rutting like the animal he is.

So he is conscious. Good. It would have been most irksome to beat him awake.

Neroon collapses the two denn'buk - that had been too close, letting the Human nearly have a weapon - and pockets them. "You must have gotten your other hand free when I gave you dignity and turned my back upon you," he shouts. "And _this_ is how you repay an act of kindness?"

"Oh, yes!" the Human snaps, "true mercy on your behalf!"

"Why would you do such a thing," he asks.

"I _have_ to try," the man says.

"Try what, my patience?"

"You said you wouldn't, with me, you said you had too much honour - I believe you, you won't rape me, but this'll piss you off. Make it longer. Make it worse." The Human's hips still. He's trying to regain control, scramble for purchase to come to his hands and knees. It isn't going very well. More energy is devoted to spreading his legs. He gets to his knees like a gokling, all splayed shaky legs.

"Worse for you, perhaps," says Neroon. He glares. "You're stalling for time," he realises. "You _want_ to linger here?"

"I want -" the Human is trembling, shaking with exertion. "No, can't -"

Neroon gets to him and steps on his rear to flatten him down. "You want what?" he says. "Say it."

"I want to escape!" the man cries. He spreads his legs farther and keeps on thrusting and Neroon has to struggle to keep a hold on him. "Please - god, just - let _up_ , you bastard, would you?"

"Give me the truth first!" Neroon shouts. "What were you _doing_ here in the first place, Infiltrator Cole? What did you intend by infecting me?"

"If you're affected, it's harder for you to interrogate me! Means I might find a window of escape, means I might get off this base! You'll not let me live otherwise - d'you really think I'm that stupid? Christ - let me, just _let me come_ or _die_ already!"

Unfortunately, that's probably the truth.

A final check to be sure - Shorhat is nowhere to be seen at the windows. Not watching them, then. Good.

 _Good._ If she saw this ... who knows what she'd say. What ideas she'd get.

Neroon kneels behind the man and shoves his knee between the Human's spread thighs. There, he lets him rut the furred balls against him. "Oh, fuck," gasps the Human, wide-eyed and shocked. "You - really -"

It's uncomfortably warm, nearly wet on Neroon's knee. This is disgusting, thinks Neroon. "Be advised, I ought to kill you," he says.

"But - you won't," says the Human, slowly realising - "oh fuck - you still need me for too much. And if I can guarantee my safety, can't we both walk away from here happy - yes, there, ha-ah - it'd be an impasse, a-a draw -"

But they can't, of course they can't. Neroon cannot let this Human walk away with the secrets he knows back to his military. The best he can do is keep him around, milk him for all the intelligence he's got until there's nothing useful left, hold him in the Ingata's brig where Neroon can visit at his leisure and not have to worry about the Human getting under his skin or having to take breaks when he gets too hot.

Neroon realises he's been subtly moving the knee enough to let the Human ride it. Enough to match his thrusts. With horror, he stills.

The Human jerks to life against him. "No, please, haven't I been good? I just told you what you wanted! You can't stop! This back and forth, it's ridiculous!"

"You'll tell me more?" Neroon bends down to the Human's large ears, mid-side of his head, the better to whisper to him. "I might be so convinced."

"What," says the Human. "What do you _want_ from me?"

"Is there an antidote?"

"No," cries the Human. "They didn't even get it to work, d'you really think they could hope for an antidote?"

"Then how did they test it - on themselves?"

"Blood samples! Tissues they'd collected -"

"From where?"

The man is trembling in Neroon's grasp. "Fuck you, I don't know!"

"Was it from Vega IV? Where you Humans had harvested Moon Shields?"

"If I had to guess - I - yes. Sure! That's where it was from! _Please!_ Don't _stop!_ "

Neroon allows his knee to bump up behind the Human's furred balls, just brushing barely. These must be more sensitive than Neroon had imagined. He shifts his hips to roll the knee in tantalising circles against the Human. A litany of _please, more, god I fucking hate you_ tumbles out of the Human, and he spreads his thighs wider. "Then how did they get the reaction to cease?"

"No, no," the Human sobs. "I can't - can't even think straight - hate this, I _hate_ you -"

Neroon grabs him by the hair and pulls him up. It's only after he does it he realises he's done it with his bare hands - the Human hair is thick and full and a little slick, like the oil it resembles. "Tell me!" he roars.

The Human is panting openly now, his mouth garish-red, wide and panting.

"Tell me," Neroon says softly, into the Human's neck. He thrusts up with his body to knock his knee into the Human's balls. They're connected now, Neroon's pressed fast against the length of him, between his legs. "Go on, just one little truth. It'll all be over -"

"It wears off," the Human gasps. "Fuck, there, yes, fuck me, please!"

"How long?" Neroon shouts.

"Six hours!" the Human cries. "That's all, that's all I know about it, that's it, it's over! I swear! Please -"

Very well, he may as well. Allow the Human to come, he'll be just as desperate thereafter. He'll come again and Neroon will be there behind him waiting for answers.

Neroon throws him down, then thrusts his knee forward hard, so hard it knocks the man into the floor again. His valrat must make good enough contact with the cold floor tile that he whines, canting his hips back. So Neroon holds him down, one hand at the hip and one fisted in his hair, controlling and firm. "Christ, yes," he says, riding Neroon's knee, arched up in Neroon's grip by the hair, "so good, fuck, yes - ngh, fuck -"

He smears the plo'teth as he ejects it hard. The balls draw up tight when he does it, clasping against Neroon's knee, as though sorry to give it up.

Neroon lets his hair go and the man collapses in front of him.

It's now that Neroon realises he's overwarm. There is a simmering heat in his veins and his trousers feel clammy against his skin. Not only where the Human was riding him. But also between his legs. There's a noticeable throb. The pulse of the veins there is stronger than usual.

He looks at his hands. No change he can discern. But one hand held down an alien by his hips and the other held him by the hair and between both grips that alien rutted back to front against Neroon in a mockery of what you'd do in a proper shan-fall, and when it was all over Neroon's very skin tingled.

Stars, it's beginning. The best he can do is hope the makeshift mask of his has kept out most of it, but it isn't a proper mask and he knows somehow it won't be enough.

Enough of this. He yanks the Human up by the arm and hauls him over to the bed throwing him down on the mattress. The Human puts up a fight, and Neroon winds up having to wrestle him into the bed, first with his hands, then with his body - the Human kicks and flails and Neroon has to practically sit on his legs to keep control.

"You said!" the Human stammers. "No! You said!"

"I meant it, I'd rather die than touch you," says Neroon. He grabs the chain attachment from his cloak, the part that lays across the chest and keeps the pauldrons in place, and uses it to loop the Human's wrists around the frame of the bed. He won't go anywhere. "But I can't trust you to roam free, you like to touch things that don't belong to you."

"No," mutters the Human, "not - not the air, let me at least be face down - if there's anything in you like mercy -"

There isn't. "Give me something before I do," says Neroon. He loops the chain around the Human's frail bony wrists, then tightens, link by link, keeping the Human face-up in the bed.

"But, I can't," says the Human, "I-I've already given you so much, you can't possibly expect me to give you more -"

"I can, and I do," says Neroon, "and you'll give it me lest you want to remain like this. What were you doing here?"

"You're a beast," the Human shouts.

"I've been called worse by better," mutters Neroon. He affects a curious tone that he wishes he were faking entirely. "I wonder, can you really come like this, just by fucking the air, spilling over your belly by your own thoughts?"

Profanity in the Human's tongue is so mindlessly easy. It distracts him from the fact that he's starting to yearn to find out.

Neroon suspects the Human will. He'll spread his legs again and cant his hips up and thrust frictionless until he's managed to overload his feeble, Human brain. And he'll arch up like a tense bow snapping, all long limbs and thick, dark hair and if Neroon were in his right mind he'd look away, not _fantasise_ about the way the plo'teth will arc as it shoots out. There's a corresponding throb between Neroon's own legs. He hates this Human more than he can possibly say.

"I hate you," blurts the Human, "my god, I hate you all, I wish we'd never come across you awful people. I wish whatever deity you believe in strikes you down, I wish the universe would swallow you whole, I wish you'd just let me fucking _come_ or _die_ or both, just _end it_."

"You're the one who has the power to end this," says Neroon. He tries coaxing again, that's been useful before. The sooner he can get this Human tied up, the sooner he can give himself a bit of distance and centre himself. "Come on, one more little truth," he says. His voice has taken on a needy tone and that was not by his intention in the least. But the sooner the Human tells him, the sooner he can _get off_ him and work on getting himself back to normal. "Tell me what you were doing here."

The Human wriggles out from under Neroon only enough to loop a leg around Neroon's hip, which he uses to pull him down. It's a move that looks like it costs all his energy and it's so clumsy that Neroon in his right mind should be able to block him but he isn't and he doesn't.

If this is what helps get an answer, he tells himself, then let the Human frot against him. At least Neroon is still clothed. It's not like it matters.

It's not like anyone is watching! It's not like anyone else is in this base besides they two! And he said he'd take the charade farther! That's all he's doing!

Letting the Human frot against him is one thing. Grabbing him by the thigh with a firm hand and bucking his hips in response is another. _Come on, be good for me, you can give me this,_ he thinks, and doesn't realise he's spoken until the Human gasps out a reply.

"Anti-spacecraft missiles," says the Human, "oh god, please, just kill me now, I can't stop this anymore!"

A truth, it has to be.

The Human grinds against Neroon, dragging his naked valrat against Neroon's pelvis once more and stiffens with a pained cry.

Immediately Neroon throws himself off. There's plo'teth all over his chestplate, along the waistband of his trousers. In fact it isn't plo'teth - it's stickier, not as slick, but similarly wet and grossly warm. Neroon flicks his wrist repeatedly to get it off his fingers and when that doesn't work he wipes it on his tunic. It feels like he's still got it all over his fingers.

Why had he touched it with his bare skin, anyway?

"You promised," wheezes the Human.

Neroon is busy removing the parts of his uniform that the Human has soiled. Disgusting, he tells himself, this is disgusting. He can't remove his trousers without having _nothing_ on underneath them besides his underclothes, and that can't be allowed. So he wipes the mess off the trousers as best he can with the sleeve of his already-tainted tunic. He can sense it through two layers all the same.

He turns back to the Human. Yes, he promised.

Neroon sighs, and returns to the bed to loosen the chain only enough to allow the man to flip, which he does, scrambling and fighting with his white laboratory coat to do so. No sooner has he managed to flip onto his front does Neroon tie him right back up again.

"I'm all twisted in the coat!" complains the Human. The coat is rumpled around his pelvis, doubtless holding his valrat tight to his body, and pressing against him so hard that from this angle, the two furred balls are easily visible through the cloth, pinned to him. They look lewd. The Human looks entirely exposed from this angle. Neroon has to make himself look away.

"That's your problem," says Neroon, staring at the ground. "I did as you asked."

Anti-spacecraft missiles, he thinks. They must have been part of a larger ploy.

Neroon takes a moment to think. The Human is secure and occupied, he can afford not to scrutinise him the way he's been doing. Indeed, it'd be better for Neroon for him to turn away entirely, but he can't make himself. That's his training, surely. Never turn your back on an enemy. Certainly not to catch stray glimpses of the Human hard and squirming in his peripheral vision.

This is a joke, it has to be. The universe is having a laugh, the stars are riotous with mockery. The way the Human moves, the way his own clothes have started to feel against his flesh - he's hyperaware of them both in a way he's never felt. He's more attentive in ways that horrify him. He wishes he were merely cataloguing changes but this is more than that and he knows it, this is every muscle twitch of the Human's exposed skin, the exact shade of white his nails have turned as he grips the headboard, the reverberant sound of his vocalisations. Neroon can feel them in his bonecrest.

It can't possibly be this fast. Can it?

The Human lasted much longer than he did, if it were the case... but it was a drug in progress, it may have been designed to target Minbari tissue specifically, and Human tissue is merely collateral.

Neroon realises he's grinding his teeth with the effort to _concentrate_.

Think. _Think_. What has he learnt so far, what more could he possibly need for Shai Alyt Branmer, to make a case against allowing any more wretched Humans to live? There doesn't appear to be an antidote - and lack of one would alarm the Shai Alyt into action - but it has a half-life within the body and eventually wears off - and that would appease him. The research the Gorana was able to do in her automatic lab about the compound suggested this is true. Anything that interfered with the receptors it identified as likely locations of binding would naturally release within a time.

As for how long, the Human said to expect five to six hours. This number could be wildly off, however. From the Human's own admission, the research was incomplete - they never did manage to test it on living Minbari. And it wouldn't do to test it on dead ones, either. So it cannot relate to the bioweapons research they found on Vega IV, which was also supported by the Human's uncertain answer about it.

That isn't great news for Neroon's case. He can argue that this alludes to the possibility of many such laboratories, all operating independently and developing any amount of weapons. But Branmer will see it as an inductive fallacy. (Damn his Religious Caste upbringing and their reliance on such strict logical rules. It is clear enough to Neroon from intuition alone, but Branmer doesn't suggest policy to the Grey Council based on Warrior intuition.)

There's no way to know exactly how many different types of weapon the Humans might - or might not - be attempting to make. Branmer will not accept a hunch. The only option would be if Neroon took the Human back to the Ingata, where he could be interrogated at their leisure. There's the possibility that the Human will happily tell Neroon's superior how dreadful Neroon himself was at interrogation, which will be mildly humiliating, but if Branmer thinks his executive officer needs more training in such a department, he can order Neroon to take a class.

It'd be much worse if the Human tells anybody about how he's begun to affect Neroon.

The Human cannot know. _No one_ can ever know. This, Neroon will take to his grave. His only hope is that the Human is so thoroughly humiliated he'll never speak of it either. That's assuming that Humans know anything of humiliation, but judging from the way they have attempted to contact the Minbari to plead forgiveness for the crimes that began this war, they do appear to.

(Truly, he supposes, it's a thing better late admitted than never. But no Alyt was consulted on the judgement to keep going, to force the Humans back, to make them swallow their pride with fear. That was a Religious Caste Satai's decision, an old friend of Branmer's.)

Two things continue to elude him. The first: why is it the Human infiltrator was here in the first place? What was his possible role in this laboratory? He has no apparent biochemical knowledge - he did not know enough about Vega IV to be able to satisfactorily give advice about Minbari anatomy. His previous exploits around the Flakara and the Del' Fi Na suggest that he truly does nothing more than set up anti-spacecraft missiles. But no anti-spacecraft missiles fired upon the Gorana, and the Human technology might be centuries behind Minbari technology, but Neroon's quite certain those missiles don't require a Human to be present to fire them.

The Human must be hiding something. And if he is, then Neroon has been overly kind in allowing him the grace of controlling his symptoms of the drug by virtue of being on his stomach.

And the second: _what could possibly be the goal of such a drug?_

There was a logic to this, there had to be. Could the Humans have known there was a ship around? Were they intending to draw the Gorana out, and was this why they smashed the vials of substance they had possessed, to be ready for her when she showed? The Humans would have hoped the anti-spacecraft missiles would draw her attention, or draw her down in full, so that the Humans could be ready for her personnel. The Vel'lakta regiment would have been walking into a trap.

It's yet another dishonourable tactic, to ensnare with one weapon and attack with another secret weapon. But Neroon can't find the ire for it. That must be the drug talking - similarly, he's astonished by the Humans who worked here. They knew they weren't getting out alive, and that this laboratory would only culminate in their deaths. They could have made an attempt to escape but they instead used their time to activate their weapon and fight to the death, giving their lives for others. Perhaps that had always been the plan. A dishonourable act, yet it's overshadowed by a more honourable one... perhaps the Humans are better than he thinks.

Except that this Human, the one he has tied up, seems to have thought he _would_ be able to escape with his life.

Neroon walks over to the headboard of the bed, and lifts up a lock of the Human's hair with a single finger. Cool and glossy, it slips off his hand. He has to gather more in his grip to pull enough back to expose the Human's face. It's at this point that he realises he could have done this using his denn'bok as a tool so that he didn't have to touch the Human himself.

He supposes it's not as though touching the Human is infecting him further. The drug's in the air, not the Human.

"Take a picture, why don't you," mutters the Human. He has tried to make it sarcastic, but to Neroon's ears, it sounds sultry. The Human grunts, miserable; his valrat below him peeking out from its lab coat prison is an angry purple-red. "God, 'm raw. Can't believe how this _hurts_."

"You wanted to escape," begins Neroon.

The Human gives a derisive laugh and tries from this angle to roll his shoulders. His shoulderblades are sharp enough to be seen through the coat; bony, but strong. "A pipe dream, I'm sure."

"No one else in this laboratory did."

"I stayed late," the Human admits. Then he shakes his head, trying to pull his hair out of Neroon's hand. Reflexively, Neroon tightens his grip, just to watch him wince. "No - no, 'm not telling you shit."

Neroon lets him go in such a way that it jars him, in his binds. He kneels down on the other side of the bed's headboard bars, to better look the Human in the eyes. "It's immaterial at this point," he says.

"You're the blasted enemy!"

"Yet you'll tell me eventually," says Neroon.

The Human tries a different tactic. He sneers through a breathy, affected tone. "Has it affected you yet? It must have. It's not right if I have to sit here, mired in my own misery, and you get to be so high and mighty as you bonehead buggers always are."

He's trying to goad Neroon. No doubt the Human is concerned that it has affected Neroon, or is concerned about what Neroon will do in his intoxicated state. As for the Human, his thighs quiver, and as raw as he claims he is, he's still grinding himself against the coat, less intentional and more a faint self-soothing motion, like absently scratching an itch that only worsens. He hardly seems aware that he's doing it, or that the coat is made damp with his revolting effluence. But as much as Neroon catalogues these motions with a sharp eye, it is only to study them - he ultimately retains those faculties that the Human evidently lacks.

Neroon has to retain the higher ground. He _has to_.

"You suspect it's quicker on Minbari," Neroon guesses. "It affects you Humans, too - not as quickly as Minbari, but Humans nevertheless." A non-answer - Neroon's favourite.

"Goody," drawls the Human. "Well, don't forget that you promised -"

The Human falls strangely silent. Neroon raises a brow and tries to study him, but he turns away as best he can, given his bindings, and tries to hide in the collar of the laboratory coat.

"Promised what?" asks Neroon. "Not to kill you? Remember: that depends upon how useful you are."

The Human doesn't reply.

"Nevertheless, I don't think I shall," he continues, "but I can't return either of us to my ship in this condition. So we're here for the foreseeable future. Five to six hours - you said it yourself."

This draws the Human out. "You'll - you plan to bring me back?" He looks somewhat worried now. "And do what with me?"

Neroon can't help his eyes - they flick to the Human's mouth, reddened both with blood and spittle and worried by his teeth. He tries to remind himself of the Human's plo'teth-like excretions all over his chestplate to sicken himself anew but it's working less and less. "You're an infiltrator," he says curtly. "You've got experience on at least two of our most recent incidents, to say nothing of this one. So when you claim you stayed late, I frankly doubt it."

"The... the anti-spacecraft missiles weren't working," says the Human, "I had to fine-tune them myself."

Neroon doubts that too. Why is the Human holding back? More importantly, how can he do so? Not moments ago he was blabbering his pleas uncontrollably. What kind of second wind has he had that he's able to regain some of his faculties?

No, that won't do. Neroon will have to take it upon himself to physically remind the Human that he's under the influence and unable to escape. Even if that means getting uncomfortably close to him. When the Human is uncontrolled, Neroon has the power. "You have more than enough experience that I imagine you could prepare such missiles in your sleep. With one hand tied behind your back. Or, as it were," and he cannot help a smirk, "two hands tied to a headboard, face down and ass up in a bed."

From this angle he can see the pronounced shape of the Human's rear, lifted behind him and held aloft by his spread thighs. It seems to bother the Human that Neroon is looking, so he looks his fill.

"Fuck you," says the Human. His tone and expression both are vitriolic but he's staring at Neroon's curved lips.

"If it had been your goal to shoot the ship down and destroy the samples, it would have affected you Humans early enough that one of my officers would have made note of it in the early stages of the interrogation."

A scoff. "Is that what we're calling them."

"When there were more Humans alive to interrogate," Neroon says, reasoning aloud, "if you'd been so affected, my junior officer would have worked out exactly what the drug did." He traces the bars of the headboard where the Human's wrists are bound until he reaches skin. He traces that too, along the Human's delicate hands, his long fingers. Neroon tells himself it's just to watch the Human squirm, and that he derives little pleasure from skin-to-skin contact. That's a lie, but only he has to know. The Human's skin is cool and smooth. Satisfying to touch. "At any rate, she'd have more data about your behaviour. She would have made mention of these conditions. But there was nothing. She would have noticed something like this."

He's reached the apex of a fingertip. He trails his nail down it softly enough to tickle, wondering if the Human even has sensation here anymore, being bound so tightly for so long. The Human's hand twitches; evidently he does. Where else might he be so responsive?

...That's an idle, intrusive thought.

"Maybe there wasn't enough in the air," says the Human. "Because only you, you _stupid twat_ , thought to destroy a test tube containing enough for a whole village."

"Then," said Neroon, "if it wasn't for those reasons... why? Why lure the Minbari down into a suicide operation? It can't have been that you stayed late - you are cleverer than that. So what is it?"

"You say you're a man of your word," says the Human. "And that you'll satisfy me if I tell you, right?"

The tone of voice is a little too clear, too controlled. That's suspicious. But Neroon's having a hard time concentrating now. In his mind's eye he's replaced the Human's fingertip with something a little larger, a little further south. He recalls how Shorhat admitted she threatened to touch it - the Human valrat. By now, Neroon's had himself a good glimpse: the slightly flared head of it sticking out from the folds of the lab coat, shiny-wet and tempting.

Shorhat's earlier description now strikes Neroon as more revealing than he had initially understood. She wasn't put off because the drug forced her to admit the truth that she wouldn't touch it - that was rather a rare lucid moment of regaining control. It's more likely that the small airborne percentage of the drug had made her consider it in the first place.

Surprising that even at those levels, it had an effect. Or perhaps there is something of the perverse in her, and she required little chemical suggestion.

Less surprising, then, that Neroon thinks about it, constantly, looking at it, a prickling anticipatory sensation in his fingers. There's been so much of the drug in the air, it's entirely understandable! He could just do it. The Human's bound, he's not going anywhere. He could flip him over, have him on his back, kick his legs apart, touch what he liked.

And he could make it look like a great difficulty, an act of mercy on his behalf, a reward for after the Human tells him what he wants to know. He could satisfy him exactly as the Human alludes, and the Human would never need to know that it's as much reward for Neroon, that he wanted it, how much he wanted it, the way he's begun to crave, the needy way he's begun to throb for it in his own valrat, just the thought of it -

Neroon wrenches his gaze away and forces some clarity into his thoughts. A moment's reflection to stare at the floor. He's almost dizzy when he stands. There's an encroaching warmth spreading to his ears and around his crest where it connects to skin as he flushes, humiliated. There's a similar warmth between his legs. He can feel himself partially unfurled, and straightens to obscure the muscular motions to force his valrat to recede. It's just the drug, he tells himself. He has honour, he has will, he has more control than a hasty youth.

"Go on, then," says Neroon. "Speak. And this time, don't lie."

The Human carefully ignores the barb. "We knew from the Centauri that there was a Warrior Caste, and that you'd be who we were fighting. We quickly found from our few engagements in hand-to-hand - on the rare occasion we'd managed to down your ships - that there were equal women and men. It's simple, don't you see? If half of you got pregnant, many of you would go home. It's an easy way to thin your numbers, since when fighting you, we lost nearly as many of us as we inflicted casualties, and in the skies, we were no match for your stealth technology _or_ your weapons."

That's... a plausible theory. More plausible than the genius infiltrator somehow failing to set up anti-spacecraft missiles correctly, after he'd managed it with the Flakara and the Del' Fi Na. Ironically, it would almost have been a boon; if even half the available Warrior women attained pregnancy, became war-bearers, the birth rate on Minbar would be the highest it's been in three centuries. The fault of the Humans for believing that Warrior Caste women return to the Federation to deliver, when there is no greater glory than to bear a child while serving during a war. A whole generation of consecrated Clan Mothers; valour for the ages. The Grey Council might thank the Humans personally.

Still. "No Minbari would have been happy conceiving under duress, under terms like these," says Neroon.

"It's not supposed to be terms like these, though," says the Human. "Enough for a whole army, wasted on two people. Different effects when it's an overdose, different when it's less."

Shorhat's actions with her superior officer. The three Alyt'rae-nali of the Gorana - yes, it all starts to make sense. It wasn't overt enough that they noticed. Just enough that the effect was there. Enough to make them think it was their own volition when it wasn't...

When it wasn't their volition at all. Shorhat wasn't requested by her Alyt-nali - she was _commanded_. And Neroon had just promoted her to help safeguard Tsafain's dishonour!

Not that Tsafain could help it, from the sounds, but did those two even look at each other before Pax 3? All along... they could have been violations.

"You intended to violate us on our own terms," Neroon realises.

The Human sneers. "I won't lie," he says, "it's a somewhat karmic outcome. Consider it collateral."

"I hate you even more," says Neroon.

"Well, that's mutual, mate. D'you think it's fair that you lot hunt us like you do? With your guns and your stealth and your technology years ahead of ours?"

That's different. "Biological weaponry like this should be outlawed -"

"You know, it's funny," the Human begins, in a bitter tone of voice, "the League actually has laws against them! A whole list full of crimes against sentience - who's surprised, the Drazi _breathe_ combat. Even the Centauri Republic has at least ratified them, but not the Minbari Federation! Oh no, of course not! We've got to keep the upper hand on Minbar, come hell or high water!"

"And you expect me to believe your Earth Alliance _has_ signed?"

"We need everything we've got to go against you, because instead of talking to us, you want to kill us all! It's not a fair fight!"

"A fair fight doesn't start with your deception when you slew our leader, harmed our central governing body, and then covered it up and lied about it," Neroon snaps, "you forfeited the right to a fair fight!" What's next, mass drivers? If the Humans move towards such a thing, the Minbari absolutely _must_ eliminate them first. At least their military, if not every last Human!

"Excellent motive, but I think you'll find it's _still genocide!_ " yells the Human.

Neroon's heard enough. He can get the Gorana to more quickly check the information net for answers about the Earth Alliance's signatory status on League documents. But to do that he'll need to move out of the Human's line of hearing - who knows how much of the Warrior Caste tongue he's picked up. He spins on his heel and leaves the Human there, tied to the bed.

There is no one in the hall. As expected. Indeed, the only thing he can hear is the Human's cries from within the room as he opens the airlocked door and lets himself out. _Don't you dare leave me,_ he is shrieking, and rattling the bars of the bed, _you won't get any answers! Do you hear me? - Get back here, you gave me your _word!_ I held up my end of the bargain, you bone-headed bastard!_

Why would he even want Neroon to remain? Is he that desperate?

Will that be Neroon's fate, too?

Truly, he must think Neroon cruel enough to abandon him, forever, like this. Bound as he is, if he didn't manage to escape - and that's unlikely, as this Human appears particularly resourceful - he'd die a slow, wasting death, hastened only by the minimal water loss as he works out the drug from his system.

No, Neroon would at least make it quick and decided. There's no honour in slowly plucking the legs off an insect, just to watch it twitch.

He lowers his makeshift mask as he dials the coordinates for the Gorana. "Alyt Neroon of the Star Riders to the Vel'lakta regiment, Gorana," he says.

There is no reply within thirty seconds. Neroon frowns.

He checks the bandwidth and interference on the signal. Within adequate parameters. He switches the device on and off again, and tries a second time. Yet again, no reply.

Curious. Perhaps no one is at Communications. But that's not very good organisation.

Well, Neroon is not here to audit the Vel'lakta regiment's procedures. And they are a Star Rider regiment, so he's somewhat inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. (He's also somewhat inclined to be harder on them for it. He won't tolerate laziness in his own clan.)

While he's waiting, he thinks.

The Earth Alliance _must_ have signed the League's declarations for crimes against sentience. That's something easily verifiable. And they're too chummy with the League worlds and too new to the galactic political stage, to have done otherwise - they have no leverage they'd risk bartering. If they have done so, then use of a biological weapon - _any_ biological weapon, no matter if it doesn't actually result in death - would constitute an offence under the act.

The Human is also correct in that the Minbari Federation has not ratified it. There had been talks of that, not long after the conflict between the League worlds, the Earth Alliance, and the Dilgar Mastery concluded, there had been talks of expanding the doctrines of war, as a way to deter future atrocities.

If the Humans signed such a document, then turned right around and committed similar atrocities... it would reflect badly enough for Shai Alyt Branmer to be convinced that Humans cannot, should not, be trusted to live.

The problem, of course, is that there is little harm in a compound that doesn't cause death, disfigurement, dismemberment... indeed, in low quantities, it does not appear to cause anything, it merely acts as a social lubricant. The way Centauri abuse drink. Stars and skies, it's not even clear whether it's addictive! And if it _were_ addictive, that would still not be sufficient cause - the Grey Council would rule that the onus is on the Minbari to remain clean and pure. Probably they would demand the formula, coopt the drug, and legalise it. They would likely consider regulating it throughout the Federation - here the Humans have, at great personal cost, presented the Minbari with a solution to their longstanding problem of declining birth rates. Service with a smile.

So it would seem that the Humans have, technically speaking, remained within the bounds of their agreement, even if they did both ratify _and_ sign the document, and there is nothing here that Neroon can use against them.

Unless Neroon lies.

Would he do it? _Could_ he do it? Tell Branmer that the drug is more dangerous than it is, base the experience entirely on his own, knowing that he took an extreme dose? Tell Branmer that the drug has adverse, irreversible effects? Lie and in so doing encourage the extinction of their entire race - is it not enough that the Minbari are already eradicating their military, which the Earthers vastly expanded upon the close of the Dilgar conflict?

Neroon tries the Vel'lakta regiment again.

No answer, once more. And to think Shorhat had told _him_ to remain in communication.

If he lies, and tells Branmer that the Humans developed a weapon that caused direct harm to their people - and to be fair, in large quantities and under certain definitions it does, he's starting to feel the effects even now, and they impinge upon his honour and will in a way that he is steadily losing control over, which Neroon admits he finds harmful (he doesn't want to think about the Human like this) - it might be enough to suggest the final step to the Grey Council.

But that's not what the Humans built.

He sighs. If he lies, then Minbari are truly no better than Humans, who lied about the murder of Dukhat. That cannot be.

He will be magnanimous. He will be honest, as is his duty, as is his honour, as is just. After all, honesty will already cost the Humans the massive bulk of their military, and a large number of Human lives, and whatever reparations the Grey Council shall require of them. Neroon will have to be satisfied with that.

Ultimately, Neroon has everything he is likely to get from this operation. It doesn't feel like success, but he will have to consider it one. His work is done; he's more than ready to get off this madhouse of a planet.

What, then, of the Human?

The Human, who, has grown quiet in the room. Too quiet.

Neroon could still take him to the Ingata. See what Branmer would make of him. He may prove useful intelligence. And in the case that the Humans retain Minbari prisoners by the end of this war, they have someone to trade. Not that it will matter, because the Humans will lose and part of their conditions of surrender shall be the demand of the Minbari prisoners' safe return.

If the end of the war even arrives soon. It is slow, and it is painful. It would be better to end it quickly. Be decisive. But such decisions are the Shai Alyt's.

Nevertheless, Neroon would have to wait this out until he could knock the Human out and cart him aboard his flyer. There is no space for another conscious person the Human's size in Neroon's flyer, and there is the danger that he might wake up.

This means that Neroon would have to wait through his own full dose of the drug. Which he suspects is just beginning.

Or, Neroon could simply leave now. Preserve his honour. Kill the Human swiftly, at least so as not to make him suffer.

If he's able to do such a thing.

His Warrior honour is on the line at this point. He's begun to look at the Human like he's interesting. Just like the Human - who no doubt dislikes Minbari as much as Neroon hates Humans - found pleasure tucked against Neroon's body, rutting against his muscles.

The very thought of that, of their position earlier, has him wet.

The Human pinned to the bed, Neroon atop him, astride his thighs. The Human couldn't move, he wouldn't be able to free himself, he'd be entirely at Neroon's mercy, and if he asked nicely - if he begged prettily - Neroon might deign to touch him, might further allow him to rub up against him, touch his ugly, hairy, not as unappealing as it should be, alien valrat to Neroon's sacred warrior robes, let the friction make him spill over himself, plo'teth or whatever it is on Neroon's trousers, well! He'd _have_ to remove them, and then the two of them there, a single bed, what is to be done about that?

His cool, smooth fingertips on Neroon's aching flesh - oh, he can smell his own arousal, now. This is bad. This is very bad. He's been thinking of the Human like he's meat, and Neroon is a month starving. And starving people are desperate and Neroon _hungers_ so -

"Vel'lakta to Alyt Neroon, Nusa Lokhat speaking," chirps his hy'lerr.

Neroon's heart skips nine beats. Oh, thank Valen. He's never been so glad for an interruption. He puts his thoughts firmly away. "Neroon to Lokhat, yes, go ahead."

"Go... ahead? I-is there something you needed of us, Honoured Alyt?" There is a shuffling of something Neroon can't identify. Is all of Vel'lakta this disorganised? "We, we are... very busy. Are you able to leave the facility so we may eliminate it?"

"What," says Neroon, thoroughly confused. "No, I am keeping in regular contact with you as is protocol." There is silence. Neroon cools his tone. "Is the Vel'lakta regiment in the business of adhering to protocol?"

"Yes, Honoured Alyt," and the voice has the decency to sound a little ashamed, "we confirm protocol. It's just - we are very busy. Er. Here on the ship." Lokhat clears his throat. He sounds rushed.

Neroon narrows his eyes. "Busy with _what?_ "

"There is - a lot of commotion. I cannot say more. Is there a specific query?"

Well, let them be vague. He will return soon enough to see what the damage is, if the Vel'lakta hasn't set the ship on fire. He'd genuinely thought them more put-together than this. But it's fine. He does have an actual query, now that he's thinking of it, and not the Human. Why _was_ the Human delayed?

"Yes," he says. "Can you confirm the status for me of any Earth Alliance technology anti-spacecraft missiles, aimed at the Gorana when she made her initial approach and sent landing parties? Did you have to do anything to disable these, or had they even been primed?"

There is some more shuffling. "Hmm. Sorry," says Lokhat. Neroon looks at his hy'lerr in absolute confusion. "Ah... just one second here."

"Repeat yourself, Lokhat," Neroon says, coldly. "That sounded extremely casual for a discussion with an Alyt."

"Yes, hmm, yes, of course." It sounds like Lokhat is muttering to himself. "I just can't blasted _think!_ Stars take me."

"Star Rider!" Neroon shouts. "You will _concentrate!_ "

Somehow, this gets through. "Yes, Honoured Alyt," he replies. "Of course. What was the question?"

Neroon barely manages to keep his cool. " _What_ was the _status_ of the _anti-spacecraft missiles_ on the _planet_ as the _Gorana_ exited _hyperspace._ "

"There, uh." There is the sound of Lokhat's fingertip pad - bare? where are his gloves? - as he swipes through the records and queries the Gorana's records. "Well, there weren't any, Alyt."

"No missiles," murmurs Neroon.

"Ye-ep," Lokhat says. "Initial system scans show nothing. And we know their energy signatures well by now. Please, Honoured Alyt, if that's all, I really must -"

"Yes, yes," replies Neroon. "I grant you permission to sign off -" but Lokhat has already done so before Neroon has even finished his sentence.

Nusa Lokhat. Well, someone's getting a demerit point.

And someone, Neroon adds to himself, looking angrily at the door, is getting a firm talking-to.

No anti-spacecraft missiles at all.

\--

"You _lied_ ," Neroon shouts, as he enters the room.

"Oh, thank god," says the Human. "You know, I nearly had a heart attack there? I don't know what's worse, the thought that you wouldn't return, or the thought that you would. Can't believe I'm saying that!"

Neroon reaches the bed. He bends to unchain the Human's wrists from the headboard. When he has them loose enough to move, he keeps a firm grip on them and kicks the Human over to flip him so that he's on his back, just like he dislikes.

The Human begins to protest. "Hey - what are you doing -!"

"I granted you the position on your belly for a truth," says Neroon. "A truth which you didn't give." Now he'll put him back where he belongs, face-up so Neroon can watch his face - get a better view -

The better to determine whether he's lying, of course!

No, that's not why. But if he's quick about it maybe he can end this before his thoughts truly run away from him, as they've started to do. He just has to hold himself together a little longer, keep himself from unravelling. Then this will all be over, and he can find a quiet space in his flyer and turn off the recording devices and abase himself all he needs in the privacy of his own company.

"That's not fair! You can't expect me to take this lying down! You can't expect me not to fight!"

Of course it's fair. The Human twists, trying to squirm out of the bindings, but Neroon gives a sharp tug on the chains and his hands are painfully bound once more. His legs are free, though, and he kicks out at Neroon. Neroon easily avoids some of his kicks and knocks others back. "Stop that," says Neroon.

" _You_ stop it," says the Human. "Stop playing with me, toying with me like you enjoy this. Stop _watching_ me like it's a sport."

"Would you prefer I beat you? Leave you to die?"

"It's on-brand, at least!" The coat has landed open as the Human kicks, leaving him bare, his valrat an angry red, pulled by its own weight to his abdomen, bouncing as the Human thrashes. The bed begins to shake in a way that makes Neroon suspect the Human's been keeping all his energy for this moment. He wins some laxness in the chain in the headboard and starts to pull more.

Neroon collects his cloak from the floor, dodging the Human's feet as he does, to rip off a piece of it. He catches one foot and knots the cloth around. "No, stop," says the Human, grunting, "not that - don't - I'll be good," but Neroon is done with his lies and binds him at the ankle. "Quit it!" the Human adds. "Listen to me!" Neroon ignores him. The Human keeps thrashing and kicking, but like their ships the Minbari are too quick for Humans and before the Human manages to land any hits at all, Neroon has deftly knotted the cloth around the leg of the bed.

"Now," says Neroon. He tries to be patient but it slowly dissolves, and he can blame the drug for that but he knows that it too is _on-brand_. "Are you ready to behave and tell me the truth this time? Or need I bind the other one? Perhaps if I leave the room and never return, strap you in here until you succumb? Let you waste away, bathed in your own spunk?"

The Human's other leg is free, but he's lost some of the fight, having expended too much of his non-existent energy on a fruitless endeavour. He collapses back now, groaning with stymied vigour. "Oh, I'll tell you," he says. "You _arse_ , you deserve it!"

"Yell if you like, no one's even listening," Neroon snaps. He looks at the Human, glaring, mistrustful that he really is as exhausted as he looks, lying back on the bed as though defeated, panting with exertion. These are lies. These are still all lies, nothing this Human has done has been accidental. Not even this! "You're still holding something back."

The Human gives a weak grin, testing his binds with a playful tug of his ankle. He lets out a low chuckle that slowly devolves into a manic cackle and he has never looked more insane with his wild hair, his heaving chest and his erect valrat that Neroon _still can't stop looking at._ "It looked accidental, I'll give you that," says Neroon, "but you would never have sacrificed so many lives for nothing, for an accident!"

"Yet so many of us _have_ died for nothing, at your hands," says the Human, wheezing.

"You're getting exactly what you deserve."

The Human thrashes again, pointlessly. "No one deserves this!" he bellows.

"I disagree -"

"And your way is justice, is it? Meted out punishments, you man of your word? You left me there and I for a moment thought you'd not return!" The Human thrashes in a way that flips his hair up, to clear it from his eyes, so he can fix Neroon with a nasty frenzied glare. "For a moment, I almost wished you wouldn't, and for another moment I ached to have you back, wondering what I could do when you returned just to help you end this, one way or another. Ohh, I must be _mad!_ "

The Human's vibrant eyes when he tells Neroon he ached for him. Neroon's heart is racing and he's not even exerting himself to keep the Human pinned.

He's lying, Neroon tells himself, he's lying even now, he has to be, he still longs for escape, he's found some way to stall until he has his opening. He has to be lying.

He _ached_ for him. Well, it's mutual.

The Human falls back against the bed, for a moment quiescent, but for his heaving chest. "But I realised something. See, the way I see it," he says, thoughtful, "it's a bit contradictory. You've _told_ me you'll satisfy me if I give you answers. And you know by now that as much as I hate wanting it, it's the drug. Not you - the drug! But you've also told me your honour won't allow you to take part in this willingly -"

"I shall not do to you what your soldiers have done to my kind," says Neroon. "It is not our way, it is not something we understand. To do what you do to us would violate our honour. We are no participant in that. That you do it when you have the upper-hand, of course, we cannot help. It is the participating that is dishonourable."

"Ah, but you're not quite in your right mind, are you," says the Human. "So what's that mean for your honour?"

Neroon stops, cold.

The Human gives a wild grin. "When you left me, it did make me think a little, as I'm caught here with nothing else to do. Maybe the drug's wearing off, maybe it's only getting worse and I've reached a new level of logic. But if I tell you what you want to know, you have to satisfy me, don't you? Well, I thought to myself, it's not enough simply to jack me off anymore, I've made myself raw. Look, I've been against the bed for nearly a half hour and not one bloody orgasm. It won't work anymore. So it looks like you'll _have_ to take another approach. And I'm sure you can gather what approach would be appropriate for the right answer - so let me give you the right answer. After all, it's what you want!"

Neroon suddenly realises what he intends to ask. No - demand. "Stop," he says. "I cannot do that. I couldn't do what you ask."

"But that's the necessary price and payment," says the Human. "And you said you'd pay the price for the right payment. You gave me your word."

It's the drug talking, he realises, the Human himself admitted that under the influence he'd beg for it. Now he's begging. It's purely chemical and Neroon should put a stop to this.

But he keeps looking at the Human and his naked body, framed by the coat, spread wide open, looking up at Neroon with a hot defiance.

"You say it doesn't violate the honour of a Minbari if you're not the participant," says the Human. "Because we can't force you to take a hand in it. But that's just the very thing, I _can_. And you've no one to blame but yourself, you're the one who broke the test tube, you're the one who started this. If I tell you everything you want to know, if I'm compliant with your investigation. You'll have to be a little more hands-on. And in your state, I think you can't stop yourself from enjoying it."

"Not like that," says Neroon. Do _not_ do this, he thinks, why would you do this?

"I distinctly recall you said you'd be quite accommodating," argues the Human, and is it Neroon's imagination or does he say it with a pout, does he shift his hips just enough to buck his valrat up a little? "You're the one who offered in the first place! Granted, you could simply let me go, we each go on our merry way, and we can each call it a day."

That is unlikely. Neroon knows it; he suspects the Human knows it too.

"I suppose," the Human adds, "you could lie. I tell you the truth but you give me nothing anyway, because it makes you so uncomfortable. But wouldn't breaking your word violate your honour too? So I'm curious, which is the greater dishonour? Do you lot have dishonour maths to calculate these things?"

The Human knows. He must have picked up enough Fik to know exactly what he's doing - how else could he have tripped over the _chimoor nu'tselai_ , the honour dilemma? In a race that lacks honour, how could he practice it? This isn't accidental, this violation is absolutely intended. "It's not like what your people do," says Neroon.

"No," says the Human, "it's not. You're right that some soldiers, somewhere, would have sought to demoralise you. Any way possible. Obviously the way we usually demoralise the enemy isn't working, so here's a new tactic for you now that I've gained a nifty bit of insight about you - and thanks ever so for that, my spiky friend, as it's your doing! - you gave me your word, didn't you, that you'd give me relief if I told you what you wanted to hear?"

"No," says Neroon, who knows what's coming. "No, stop talking, do not make me do this -"

"But I will," says the Human. "I will because I hate you, I will because I want you to know exactly how much I hate you. I thought just to wait until you're desperate but I don't know how you'll react - can't tell whether you'd take me up on an offer or simply put me out of my misery, too scared of your own desires. And let me be clear, I _am_ miserable! So I'm cutting you off at the pass. I will make you do this and you will hate every moment. And that's about as much justice as I'm likely to get on my knees, isn't it! Now, let's let me do what I do best, which is talk -"

"You shut your damned fool mouth," says Neroon. He puts his hands at the Human's mouth but it doesn't muffle the sound enough and the Human keeps on talking, twisting his head to get past Neroon's fingers, to get his words in edgewise.

It's his only option, to shut the Human up. If the Human follows through with this, if Neroon gets the information, he's already promised.

But the Human is nimble.

"You're right that it was a suicide mission," the Human manages nevertheless. Neroon's doing the best he can to shut him up but it isn't working, his reflexes seem too slow. He's too busy thinking about the plush lips, the smooth skin, the oil-slick hair in his fingers, the weak ache between his own legs. "You're right too that I wasn't delayed in the missiles - there were no missiles or we'd've launched them. But it also serves as distraction for you! Because while your ship has been busy, many of our supply ships have been running behind it through hyperspace nearby. Collecting data, getting intel on your stealth weapons and maneuvres, now that you've been beached around this dead rock for days now. This isn't deployment, this is proof of concept - _can we distract you._ That's why I stuck around. And it seems to me we can! Imagine what kind of things we could do with you so distracted. Board your ships? Upload a virus to your systems to fault your stealth?"

He's right.

That's so much worse than some mass pregnancy scheme, and so much more obvious - how could Neroon have missed that?

"The ship in orbit was busy with some commotion when I called, just now," Neroon realises. He has to get back to the Gorana - warn them -

"That commotion," says the Human, "is their distraction. Your junior officer knew I spoke Interlac, but she didn't know I spoke your tongue. Because we made sure your people got a good dose coming in, and your people brought enough of the drug back there to analyse, like ants with Borax. Oh, not enough that it would harm them, or be noticeable. Just enough to set them off. All your lovely drills and training - down the drain. That was our plan all along. _There's_ your truth."

The Human grins to himself. "Simple, really. Surprised you didn't put it together yourself. But then, I imagine you've been dealing with your own distractions, haven't you?"

Neroon is shaking his head. No - he can't let himself be so easily misled. "Stop - I'll let you free," he mutters, and he's already untying the Human's leg, the one he's bound, to kick him and flip over again. The better to not look at his face or his enticing body; the better to keep him pinned to the bed, the better to keep control.

He'll let the Human free. Then he'll have to kill him, he'll have no choice. Striking him in the back after having given his word like a shameful coward. Because Neroon can't do what he's asked, even though Neroon promised.

But the Human kicks out and thrashes again, his energy renewed with victory. Desperate, Neroon bodily rolls him over, and Neroon's strength outpaces the Human's, so he wins. To stop him wriggling, he sits on his legs, but that doesn't solve the problem of the Human's mouth which runs races. All at once Neroon finds himself trying to muffle the Human with a pillow, tie his frantic legs back, picking whichever limb to deal with first, _and_ keep the higher ground at all costs. But something has to give. And Neroon _is_ distracted - not only is he wrestling with his own defeat, the drug has him too observant of the Human's heat and strength underneath him.

Because between the Human's movements and Neroon's attempts to control him, there's friction, glorious friction, and Neroon doesn't even have to look down to realise he's unfurled like a weak man half his age. His valrat wants this badly enough that it's not listening to Neroon anymore, it's paying attention rather to the Human's bucking against his pelvis, the Human's warmth - it's shocking, it's horrifying, it's a violation unlike anything he could have imagined.

The Human too seems to have realised it, and his tone of voice is gloating, in between the times he's busy moaning, because his ass is aligned against Neroon's valrat and separated as they are from each other by Neroon's clothing and the Human's coat there's no mistaking it. "Ha," murmurs the Human, "what did I tell you, eh?"

He's practically _soaked_ through his underclothes. It's entirely possible he's already come once, and out of horror he didn't even enjoy it. He unfastens his trousers only enough to try and air himself out, and it helps with the heat, a mild chill balm of regained poise.

There, now all he needs to do is regain control enough to recede himself - something he's done countless times. He tries - but it's fruitless, his muscles don't seem willing to respond. He resorts to physically tucking himself back in but to no avail, his valrat merely slides out again, ready, waiting. He's too slick. Perhaps if he wiped himself off?

Yes, that would work! Just to take the edge off...

No sooner has he wrapped his hand around himself does he realise what he's doing.

He will not masturbate in front of the Human!

But, the Human is looking away. He wouldn't know...

No, this is insanity. Neroon removes his hand, soaked in plo'teth, and wipes it on the corner edge of the Human's lab coat, then again (because there is so much it remains upon him) on his trouser leg. The movement tugs the waistband a little further down his hips and they slip open, exposing him. It's all he can smell.

"The key," adds the Human, in a voice thickened by lust, sultry and low, "was never to make you so randy you couldn't see straight. Just enough that it would be under the level of consciousness. So that we too could bypass your level of consciousness. It's not _fair_ that you have the weapons and technology you have, don't you get it?"

"Stop talking," says Neroon, even as he has his hands on the Human, a touch which he had intended to use to balance himself not to be thrown off, but which has shifted into stroking.

"There, you bastard," says the Human, "I've told you what you wanted, I gave it up. It's even the truth, I thought you'd appreciate that. As you keep saying, you lot feel very badly about lies. I gave you what you wanted."

"I can't," breathes Neroon.

"So you give me what I want. You're going to fuck me, and I'm not asking any more."

"I can _not_ ," says Neroon.

"But you promised," says the Human. His tone of voice is openly gloating, and Neroon cannot see his face through all the dark hair but he knows the Human is laughing at him. He imagines the wicked curve of his soft lips, framed by all that thick hair. "You gave me your word! Relief, for my secrets. I've held up my part of the bargain. And I can _feel_ you - you're prepared to do it. So you will."

How dare the Human use this against him.

How dare the Human be so much better at this game than Neroon is! Much better. Neroon knew he'd be facing a difficult task, with his interrogation skills, but difficult was an underestimation all its own - Neroon has found himself genuinely outclassed.

He has to do it.

At least if he has to do it, it's a very clever Human? He won, though Neroon might not exactly call it fair and square -

Then again, Neroon has not exactly played fair either, and turnabout is fair play -

There are no rules about justice and this -

His honour demands it -

His valrat demands it. It pulses, throbs, heavy, between his legs, smearing slick inside his underclothes, dampening his trousers, so painfully erect. He's shivering with the force it takes to hold himself back.

He could leave. He _should_ leave, slaughter the Human (no, he can't do it!) - abandon the Human (to a slow death? dishonourably retreat?) -

Get to the Gorana, find someone else, find a Minbari - but who? Who would help him through this? No one is his rank, he'd dishonour himself if he asked. Get to the Ingata - but he has to submit a report for the Gorana, they will know!

He mustn't do this with someone his whole race thinks is little more than chattel, little more deserving than of dying, for what they did to their Chosen One, for not apologising genuinely enough, fast enough, for not meaning it and expecting the Minbari to accept their transparent lies!

Oh yes, Neroon has heard all the justifications! Said them himself, once or twice! Most importantly, he shouldn't do this with any alien because any alien is _not Minbari_ , is not honourable like Minbari, and he can't deny that because look at how this Human has swindled him into doing this.

But the Human _does_ understand, about fairness, about justice, about honour enough to form a dilemma to entrap him.

Neroon looks at the Human, at this alien man, at this alien man he's at war with, spread and prone for him.

He can't do it. He can't do this.

But also... he can. He wants like he's never wanted a Minbari before. From this angle he can see his hole, on display (this is obscene) and he is aching for it.

It's just the drug!

It somehow isn't.

He should leave. He should kill him.

He crawls forward, onto the bed. Closer to where the Human waits, his ass in the air.

"I don't want to do this," Neroon whispers, even has his valrat makes guilty, wet contact with the Human's thighs, trailing plo'teth. It's so good he shivers. "This is a violation."

"You're goddamned right it is," says the Human, spiteful. "I gave you my answer. So you give me your terrible, awful, cock, and let's make an end to this."

And there's some sick logic to what the Human says. _Let's make an end to this._

All he has to do is move forward.

The moment he puts it in - _bliss_. It's bliss. Like quenching a thirst after not drinking for days. He should take it easy, and moments of clarity like alarm bells ring at him - this is wrong, this is wrong! But he lacks the ability to control himself for it. The Human is tight, and warm, and Neroon sinks in deep easily. He's so wet for it there's enough to ease the way in despite how nervous and clenched up this (alien, Human!) man must be, and as he shakily grips his ass to try to have some kind of stability, to have some purchase, to have more and deeper, he knows he's never going to be able to make himself stop now.

What of his honour?

He can't dig deep enough to find the care for it anymore. His body is practically singing and it's too loud for him to hear anything else. This man, he's hot and tight and (willing?) and his skin is soft and smooth and Neroon could fuck him until the heat death of the universe because he's out of his mind with lust and nothing but lust seems to matter anymore, his entire field of attention has narrowed to this one point of contact.

"Fuck," the Human chokes out, "that's - can't believe -" He stammers something beneath Neroon but it's not an objection, and even if it were, the way he cants his hips up to better receive Neroon is its own answer. He adjusts, loose just enough to drive in deeper with ease, tight enough to make it burn.

Glorious, thinks Neroon. It's never felt like this before, ecstasy has nothing on this feeling. Finally, finally, it's over, except that it's not quite so easy, and the sensation draws out. He has to chew his lip to keep himself from saying anything. Bad enough the Human can feel him like this, intimately, inside him; he won't give up everything by moaning.

The Human has no such compunction. Or rather, may have had them at one point, and no longer retains that measure of control. "I'm - I'm going, oh _christ_ \- don't stop - I'm -" he devolves into moans, punctuated by the way he pushes back into Neroon's hips, to fuck himself deeper on Neroon's valrat, until he tightens absurdly, clenching and spasming. He's come again, then, no doubt spilled into the sheets, no doubt as upset with himself as Neroon is, muttering about having come around _Minbari warrior cock_.

And theoretically this means Neroon's held up his part of the bargain, so he's free to leave.

But he doesn't want to leave. He wants to come. He wants to dig his nails into the soft flesh of the Human's ass and he speeds up, so close that he can feel it clawing at the edges of his awareness, orgasm creeping in. With a low moan, he feels himself come, valrat pulsing inside, as he spends plo'teth. He tries to keep his reaction in but he can't help a shuddering gasp or the way he grips the Human.

No relief. He's still just as taut as he was. How did the Human manage to keep his calm for so long?! The first time he came must have been an hour ago. Two? Time feels liquid, slipped through cupped fingers.

"You have remarkable composure," he murmurs, a rare compliment.

Not minutes pass before the oversensitivity has faded, replaced by a desperation that hasn't been slaked, only stoked. Neroon thrusts in again and sighs.

The Human laughs; it sounds like a sob. "Don't stop," he groans. "'M still hard." He pushes back on Neroon, a low-level keening coming deep from his throat, begging with his body for more, and Neroon is not strong enough to deny either of them.

The Human wants this. He is willing. (Or it's the drug?) He's at least as willing as Neroon is. (Is Neroon willing?)

"Please," says the Human. The backs of his thighs quiver against Neroon's on every thrust. "Ah, please - let me -" He tugs fruitlessly at his wrists, bound to the bedpost.

Neroon leans in, closer, flattening his body against the Human's back. "Let you what," he growls into the Human's ear.

His tunic between them is too rough, the material scratchy in a way that he's never fully appreciated until now. He takes a moment to undo it and shrug it off. His hands still at the hem of his undershirt - he wants to remove that, too, but he can't, this is a Human, he can't be so wholly exposed. He thinks this while he fucks the Human with his bare valrat. It's not logical.

"Ha-ah - let me, please, let me come," mutters the Human. He rattles the chains binding his hands on the bed's headboard. "Just one hand, I need to. Fuck. I need to touch myself, please, please!"

Neroon wraps his hand around the Human's hips, and skates his touch lower. He grips him by the valrat exactly as he'd threatened to do. It's only truly slick at the top and that nest of black hair rustles up against the side of his hand on every thrust. But it doesn't disgust him like it should. The Human's alien valrat practically leaps to life in his hand and the man bucks so wildly to thrust into it that it's hard, but delicious, to hang on for the ride.

"No, you'll come like this," says Neroon, "I'll have you pulsing so hard you shoot it out," and he cannot resist the urge to lean forward a little more and take the Human's larger, thicker earlobe between his teeth.

After all, there is something so aggressively obscene about the way the Human experiences orgasm. Expelling it forcefully out of his valrat. It's imperative that he should do it again - he clenches so beautifully around Neroon when he does it and he cries out with broken moans and, and, and he's so very pleasing! How Neroon abstained this long he's no idea. He could fuck him for days and it wouldn't be enough. He needs more, he needs deeper, he needs to come, he needs the touch of his skin on his, fever-hot and slicked with some substance Neroon can't even identify.

This time when he comes, inside the Human's bare ass, he thinks about that, being wrapped around him with limbs entangled, frotting mindlessly, his fingers wrapped and threaded through all that pitch-dark hair. Neroon pulses so hard he can feel it in his toes.

"More," he gasps, fucking him through orgasm and somewhere in the third deep thrust, the pulsating pleasure of it, the Human groans and his hole clenches hard and it's impossible because Neroon didn't think he could get any wetter but he _does_ , his beautiful tight hole wrings out another series of pulses from him, and he fucks him harder, deeper, tries for more.

"Let me flip over," says the Human, "please." And perhaps out of some shocked shame, if indeed there is any shame remaining to him, Neroon lets him. Once he's come, once he's realised this will take more than one orgasm, this may take more than twenty. He loosens the Human's wrist and some Warrior instinct in the back of his mind activates a mental bout of anticipation, ready if the Human should try to use what little purchase he's gained to fight his way free.

But the Human doesn't. He lets one wrist remain and uses the other to turn himself over in Neroon's arms, compliant enough to keep his thighs spread. Neroon watches the way his facial expression contorts, from an admixture of pain and ecstatic rapture, as he enters him again. That instinctual part of his mind that he keeps military-ready immediately reallocates to categorise every twitch of the man's face instead.

Thus does Neroon fully surrender.

\--

At some point, he thinks he loses consciousness. There are only scraps of scenes through his vision, atemporal and out of phase, followed by darkness.

He thinks he has the Human in his arms, he thinks he's proud of himself for having bound the man by the wrists because he doesn't need to worry about the Human's hands.

But then in another glimpse, one of his hands is loose, and it's wrapped around Neroon's valrat, squeezing, stroking, the pressure wonderfully beautiful, his long fingers so like any Minbari's that Neroon could almost forget that they're alien.

His own hand at the Human's valrat. Further south, grasping the two furred structures, softer than anything he's laid hands on in the universe -

"Careful," gasps the Human, "careful there, gently."  
"What are they," Neroon asks, mystified, slightly reverent.  
The Human replies, "They're bollocks, yours are internal."

\- and Neroon realises what they must be at the same time he discovers this is the most civil conversation he's had with the Human and it's about fucking _ha'kel'daro_ , of all things.

He chuckles into the Human's neck and his hands slip behind these strange external furred ha'kel'daro to the man's hole, gaping, slick with Neroon's plo'teth. He feels oddly proud. He slips a finger inside him and the Human gasps, arches in his arms and spreads his thighs wide. One arm loops around Neroon's neck, nestled against the sensitive skin at the bottom of his crest, and the other is still attached to the bedframe as the Human twists in his grasp to receive him.

Grips the bedframe with the effort of a second finger. He tightens around Neroon -

He spills as Neroon delves deeper, crooks his fingers around, curious to see if there's a similar structure to the Minbari tsedo, and judging from the way he cries, there is -

He fingers him for an eternity and a heartbeat.

How _wonderful!_ How is it possible they could be so compatible. How is it _possible_ -

But of course it's possible, their drug works on both Minbari and Humans, maybe this is why they couldn't extricate the functionality for only Minbari -

It makes sense! Stars above and around them, it makes so much _sense!_

What luck, he'd never have known the heat of the Human's mouth on his own or the slide of his tongue, deft as any Minbari's but the taste so foreign and strange, his beard somewhat prickly but indescribably soft, as the Human strokes him, tighter, until Neroon is pulsing again in his hands, coming like he's never come for a Minbari.

The Human's fingers at the neckline of his undershirt for a sacred eternal second before a deafening rip as he pulls it apart. Stroking down Neroon's bare chest, moaning appreciatively - reaching his valrat and then idly tracing the f'hirs out of which the valrat ejects, slipping his fingers a fraction inside the cavity. Daubing plo'teth with his thumb onto Neroon's lower lip; kissing it off.

The Human's fingers behind the base of his valrat, at his hole, stroking around the rim of it with the slickness of Neroon's own plo'teth, plunging inside, his teeth at Neroon's neck.

Their limbs wrapped together, thrusting, moving. Neroon's heartbeat thunderous in one ear and the Human's moans as he enters him in another: the sound is aural exaltation.

Isn't it right that the Human should serve him, anyway? Isn't that a natural order to the universe? That he should beg Neroon to allow him that privilege, that they should be connected like this, and the Human's ever-constant litany of 'please, yes,' is justification of that -

Neroon must be dreaming this, it can't be happening, he'd never let a Human take such liberties. At least remain on top, that he has the higher ground, that he can keep control over this man, as out of control as he feels.

Stars, his alien valrat pulsing inside him, plo'teth fucking _everywhere_.

Neroon grips him by his smooth alien hair and screams into oblivion, and lets go of the last of his shame.

\--

Ages pass in a blink of an eye. The Human, unsurprisingly, wakes first - he has had a little longer to metabolise the drug. And this is proof too that it affects Humans less than Minbari.

Neroon, barely conscious, sees only a coloured haze - the air is thick with it, as though he can visualise the drug in the air, spore-shot and smeared in the atmosphere, not sunshine yellow but a bright argon violet, a landscape like something out of Shaal Teyaam's oeuvre. But something is very wrong, there is an alarm blaring in his mind somewhere, and it's because the Human is shuffling away, moving as though sore (and well he should be) and rifling through the pockets of Neroon's discarded trousers.

Neroon staggers to his feet and they crumple out from under him. His groin hurts, and so do his bones, both so overwhelmingly excruciating that he can hardly devote attention to anything else, so it's hard to see which wins the award for most useless body part. "Stop," he says. Or, he tries to say, but his mouth isn't functioning correctly. Something like _shhtn_ escapes him.

"Now, this, here," says the Human, mostly to himself, holding up Neroon's hy'lerr. "I imagine there's a goodly amount of intelligence on this." He flicks it up in a lazy toss and catches it easily. He's clearly having no issues with his movement. He looks over at Neroon as he slips Neroon's hy'lerr into the pocket of his lab coat. "Ah! You've returned to the land of the living, have you?" He studies Neroon with a clear, sober gaze. "You know, I never did get your name."

Neroon's not sure which is worse, that the Human should abscond with his hy'lerr (good luck decrypting it) or one of the denn'buk, which are also in the pocket of Neroon's. Luckily, the Human does not seem to recognise the denn'buk as weapons.

If he could just get to one himself - he could have the reach to stop the Human -

But he can't. He topples to the floor, barely able to crawl. Through some horror he manages to slide forward, like the fin-footed thurae of the F'tach Islands, using every last iota of his strength and the relatively low static friction of the floor. He's certain he's leaving a smear of plo'teth as he does so.

The Human dodges him easily. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to make my exit now," he says. "I'd say it's been fun but I really don't know _what_ it was. I don't know if I remember it all. I think, for my own part, I'll pretend it never happened. I don't consider one's first time being a violation to really have adequately shown you what sex is."

He squats down, to look Neroon in the eyes. When Neroon cannot lift his head (his crest makes it too heavy, his neck presently too weak), he grabs him by the central spike and lifts his head for him. The indignity. The audacity. The horrible fact that the touch of the Human's skin is a balm because that blasted drug is still wreaking havoc with Neroon's perceptions. Neroon can't even manage the muscular control to express his rage. He's probably drooling on the floor with ecstasy.

"You'd do well to do the same," says the Human. "As I'm pretty sure all of this is not what you were supposed to do. And next time - not that there'll be a next time - send a better interrogator." With the hand that isn't holding Neroon up, the Human pats him on the cheek twice as a final parting mockery. The slight sting of the touch has him pulsing out yet another orgasm.

Then the Human lets him drop back onto the floor with a _thunk_. He stands and saunters off, letting himself out of the lab.

A sick reality overwhelms Neroon. That Human cannot live. If anyone finds out what happened here -

An alarm begins to blare. It takes Neroon a full ten seconds to realise it's not in his head.

 _Emergency deactivation set for: one minute,_ says a computerised voice in the most common Human language. _Evacuation procedures are in place. Station will be destroyed._

There's no other explanation for it except for a Warrior's self-preservation. Somehow, Neroon manages to get to his feet. He's shaky and taking any steps are harrowing, like walking on needles and through water, but he makes himself do it. He gets to his trousers - he's in nothing but his underclothes now, the waistband of his underwear torn, the undershirt ripped from neck to belly.

He takes the two denn'buk in his trouser pockets and abandons the rest of his clothes. There's no time to get his clothing on, and he has spares in his flyer.

Which the Human took the hy'lerr for! No matter, he can jerry-rig a solution to get himself in and in the air. Drills have had him able to do it in thirty seconds.

He has no time to think. Just to move. And he does, and with each step the pain dwindles, becomes background noise, as he wades through violet fog to the hangar bay where he parked.

He gets there just in time to watch an Earth technology vessel, with its strange X formation, leave. Earth technology isn't as Minbari technology, they use combustible fuel, the kind that bombards the whole hangar bay with choking exhaust and fire.

No time. Neroon walks into the heat and hopes somehow he'll come through on the other side.

Through some universal miracle, he does. His flyer is there - he has no idea how much time he has remaining, it feels like seconds and aeons at the same time. No time to think about it. No time to calculate. He opens the emergency hatch on the flyer using a denn'bok for leverage (he knows he hasn't the strength) and falls in, then closes the door behind him.

Then he squirms forward to the console to set the controls. He engages, feels lift-off, feels the gravity shift, and breaks through to the thin planetary atmosphere just as something explodes beneath him.

He worms himself into the pilot seat and put on bindings - it's actually much easier now that he's weightless - and watches each dome of the laboratory below him erupt into ballooning fire.

Void bless his instinct.

But void preserve him, too, from himself.

His honour is at stake, but not until his very life was at stake did he manage to engage himself. Even now as the lassitude returns, so too does his intoxication. He twists a certain way to look outside and doesn't mean to frot himself with such a movement, but tell that to his valrat, which pulses painfully and beautifully in his lap with unwanted orgasm.

Why couldn't he have moved earlier? Attacked the Human? Put him down, fought him, slain him, overpowered him? Done anything at all?

Because the Human had the right of it - that he'd gotten the better of Neroon? Because it was pointless to kill him to cover it up when the honourable thing to do would be to admit your breach of conduct and take your lumps? Because of the drug?

Yes. No. Every answer of the sanctity of truth of the Universe. Everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere. Always.

But it's different now. The Human's ship is not too far in front of him. Neroon has a clear shot. He _could_ take it.

Minutes pass. The violet fades into blue, into green, like polar radiation during solar activity.

Neroon doesn't take the shot.

In his sights for full minutes (hours, a cosmic temporal dustspeck, forever) and all Neroon can do is think of what he's learned from the Human. What he's learned about Humans - or at least about this particular Human.

They can't be as insects, he decides. They're cleverer than that. Wilier. And this one was desperate and to do what he did took a little bit of courage. And an equal amount of malice. Well, Neroon in his heightened state feels he's somewhat more enlightened. He can't fault him the malice. He can almost put himself in the Human's position - he'd hate Neroon too.

And despite the fear, the hatred, the chemical lust, the Human still knew that Neroon operated on a fairness and justice scale, which was relative to his own sense of fairness, anyway. It was Neroon who, unwittingly, made him part of that when he forgot that the Human wasn't an insignificant speck to be slain.

For a sacred and chemically-induced moment that stretches asymptotically, Neroon sees how it all fits together. How he can reconcile this with what they found in the colony where they lost the Moon Shields. With the Humans' lies. With the attack on the Drala Fi. The Flakara. The Del' Fi Na. With everything else he's learnt over these past two cycles. He sees Humanity naked. Their traumatic past, their teleological future.

The only problem is, Humans clearly seek to break the Minbari, but don't know how. Except this one knows how.

He won't be believed. He won't possibly be believed.

(But all it would take is one examination by a Human healer.)

Perhaps it's out of his hands. But the Gorana is right there, far enough away from the planet. They would have contacted Neroon's hy'lerr when their instruments registered the explosions, they would have received no reply (or a confusing reply, if the Human tried to make one). They would have found the Earth technology flyer speeding its way past it, towards the jumpgate to hyperspace - even Neroon's flyer shows it's broadcasting clearly.

An enemy vessel, small, easily targetable, making no attempt to obscure itself. The Gorana would know. If it got so far as to activate the jumpgate, the Gorana would know.

Neroon watches in horror as the tiny Earth flyer activates the gate and zooms out of sight into the void, without so much as vellicating the Gorana's guns.

That can't be.

As though dredged up from a sandy bed beneath lakewater, a memory lifts to him: _the key was never to make you so randy you couldn't see straight. Just enough that it would be under the level of consciousness. So that we too could bypass your level of consciousness._

Failure. He feels drained, impotent.

Maybe, out of some hope, they thought that Earth-based ship was him? Communications are easy enough to manipulate, they could have targeted the vessel and asked if it were Neroon if they had doubts, and they could have tractored it in if he had responded well enough for flight controls.

Maybe they must think his own vessel is the one that holds the Human, and they will point their guns at him.

The Gorana doesn't do that, either, and his hope is swiftly crushed.

When he gets back to the Gorana (after pilfering a basic uniform from the hangar bay main chamber) it's to find mayhem. The drug is around, he can tell - he can sense it, he can see it swirling in the air - and the Vel'lakta regiment are distracted. Not so distracted that anyone has caught on and sounded an alarm.

But distracted enough that they didn't really understand that the flyers they saw zipping by were in fact separate ships. Distracted enough they hardly saw them.

This is what the Humans wanted all along, Neroon realises. And he's just given them proof of concept.

\--

Neroon locks himself in the associate bridge of the Gorana and procures himself quarters for an Alyt before he is able to travel further to the Ingata. (No one aboard the Gorana follows protocol of a visiting Alyt; the Gorana's Alyt is nowhere to be found. Distractions upon distractions.)

Masturbating it away takes a horrific eternity. He sits in an air chamber to help clear his lungs, but it doesn't help. He cleans himself twice, stripping his skin nearly flayed each time. Practically pink with the exertion, he's every square speck of him raw but it doesn't satisfy his valrat, which needs attention constantly, and which only seems to satiate when thinking of the Human.

Neroon's fantasies grow lewd. Locked away with no one to know, and still too in the grip of the chemical for propriety's sake, he's just daring enough to give in to them: the Human, nude and on his knees for him, his thighs spread as he opens his red mouth wide, Neroon's hands through his Human hair as he thrusts past his lips. Pulsing against the heat of his tongue. The way he'd moan around it if he were simultaneously stroking himself off. Neroon's plo'teth trailing down his chin, smeared sticky in his facial hair.

When he's finally able to travel, a day later, he gives a cursory report to a very distracted Shorhat. He says his bit and leaves her with a written report, which she numbly accepts before asking _and when, precisely, did you arrive, Honoured Alyt?_

Once back in the Ingata, in his own chambers, with some measure of familiarity and normalcy, he performs another bathing ritual. He pays special attention to the parts of his body where the Human touched him, kissed him, fucked him, violated him. Made Neroon violate him.

Now that the drug appears to have left his system (his valrat has receded and he doesn't expect to see it again for another, oh, _ten cycles_ ), the last few days feel like a nightmare. Neroon has snippets of memory that don't even feel like him. He very nearly doesn't recognise himself in them, and truly, desperately, wishes he didn't. That can't have been him, who moaned for a Human's touch. That can't have been him, who penetrated a Human sexually; that can't have been him, who fucked a Human countless times until he came.

He drinks only water; food makes him physically ill.

On the second day that Neroon has returned to the Ingata, Branmer comes to see him. The Shai Alyt has already come by once before and demanded a full report of Neroon's activities (Kozorr has been as forthcoming as he can be, but the Shai Alyt does not want to hear it from Kozorr, no doubt), but can hear Neroon retch from outside his chambers. Eventually, however, the Shai Alyt demands entrance and information, and will not be dissuaded.

He enters with Kozorr's assistance and technical override. Kozorr, standing perplexed in the doorway, looks from both Branmer to the sickly, miserable Neroon curled in a corner, and frowns.

He knows, thinks Neroon, he _must_ know, they all must know. They surely can see his dishonour plain on his face. You can't scrub that stain away with a rebirth ceremony.

"Neroon," says Branmer tightly. "I expected an account of the ship's status from you upon my return. Instead you were nowhere, and Kozorr was at the helm. I have waited long enough. So you will explain yourself."

For a dreadful moment Neroon cannot speak. Finally, he manages to utter, "In private, Shai Alyt. Kozorr can wait outside."

" _Alyt_ Kozorr," corrects Branmer. "Since there was no Alyt onboard the ship when I arrived, I saw fit to promote one."

How nice for Kozorr. "Congratulations, Kozorr of the Star Riders," says Neroon, glumly intoning the ritual words. "May the universe recognise your authority as Alyt."

"I... thank you," says Kozorr. He gives a quick, uncertain bow. It's clear he has no idea what's going on besides Branmer being very mad and Neroon being completely out of character.

At long last, Branmer sighs. "Very well. Kozorr, I'll see you on the bridge. You have duties." Kozorr salutes, bows, and departs.

That doesn't make it better. Branmer invites himself into Neroon's personal chambers - well, it's _his_ ship, he's entitled to any part of it - and closes the door behind him. "Get talking," says Branmer.

Slowly, painfully, Neroon does.

Branmer hears it all in silence. Neroon spares nothing about the Gorana or Pax 3 or the Human, though he's vague enough on details to preserve his own dignity. What little remains him. It is not intended to be deceitful. It is simply that Neroon expects that any honourable Minbari of a higher status than he is would not want such prurient details regarding what specifically Neroon and the Human did to one another.

At the end of it, Branmer makes one quiet demand: the report Neroon filed with Shorhat. Wordlessly, Neroon hands over a data crystal.

Branmer reads it once, then ejects it from his hy'lerr. He drops it on the floor and crushes it under his heel with multiple blows. This takes a significant amount of force, as though Branmer is shoving it below him and kicking it into submission until it develops a crack. Neroon has not seen Branmer this violent in many, many cycles.

"You could have just deleted it," offers Neroon in a meek whisper.

"I _can't delete this_ ," Branmer thunders. "You - what you _did_ , Neroon! When I promoted you cycles ago I did it against the advice of many who thought you overbold, too young, unwise, hotheaded. I told them they overlooked what I saw in you and what have you done with my esteem?"

Neroon's breaths grow shaky.

"You let an _asset_ go because of your own mistake! Because of your own pride! You would deserve demotion for this, as I have no need for an Alyt who cannot act as one. A tactical asset in your lap and you let him slip away! You couldn't even manage the ability to eliminate him!"

"Wait," says Neroon. "That's - you don't care about the indignity of it all? About - about the violation of honour?"

Branmer steps closer to him and the strike is so fast Neroon does not see it coming. A broad, humiliating slap across the cheek that has him wide-eyed and breathless in shock. "Your _honour_ means _nothing,_ Star Rider," says Branmer, seething now, "nothing to the cost of the war at large. To the honour of Minbar as a whole. What is a grain of sand? What is a drop in the ocean, what is one star to a galaxy? If it had been within your power, as it sounds as though it was, you should have used what wiles the drug they made gave you to lure him back here! Instead of nursing your honour out of some personal pride! The _Human_ had that foresight, and you lacked it!"

This... this is...

Neroon blinks away a rising heat in his cheeks. This is a humiliation beyond description and Neroon is shaking with fear and rage both.

He's angry at his own mistake, certainly. He knows what he's done wrong and he doesn't need his Shai Alyt to enumerate his transgressions. But he's angry - no, not angry, _outraged and furious_ \- that he receives not even the slightest shred of sympathy from Branmer. His superior, someone he looked up to, someone he called friend. This was _traumatic_ for him, multifold worse than the mora'dums of his youth, which in the end had only dealt with his fears!

Neroon knows that Branmer is not wrong about what he's saying, about the unexpected benefit they had found, and the loss Neroon has now cost them. But Branmer truly cannot even muster up enough care for any aspect of Neroon's violation because he's too angry about the _lost potential intelligence_.

"Your Religious Caste upbringing betrays you," says Neroon thickly, holding back tears, trying to keep his breath under control and failing. He's never meant it more cuttingly than now. Neroon, who has ever defended Branmer and his Religious ways to other Warriors who thought him not Warrior enough to lead. Neroon, who for all his loyalty to Branmer now feels utterly betrayed by him.

So this is how a priest rewards loyalty.

But Branmer is Shai Alyt. Neroon can say nothing against him. That is the way of the Warrior Caste, of chain of command. There is no protestation permissible. Branmer doesn't see his abominations for what they are - like all Minbari he doesn't understand what a violation this mystifying forced mating was. Neroon should count himself lucky Branmer doesn't throw him out of the damn clan!

Neroon doesn't feel lucky. He feels heartbroken, he feels empty. He feels wrung out and dry, gritpaper scraped against his throat because he's done nothing but retch for what feels like days, scraped against his body where he's scrubbed himself raw and is still unclean.

Isn't there an old Warrior ritual for that, to nurse a wound before returning to the fray? If Branmer doesn't care about Neroon, perhaps he will care for tradition.

Neroon mentions it. Branmer grants him an hour and his tone of voice says Neroon's fortunate for even that. "Then," says Branmer, "I want you in Tactics for what will no doubt be our finest and final victory against this swarm of _lunatic insects_. If we succeed, your failure will not matter. There will _be_ no Humans left to know the secrets you let escape."

And... isn't that what Neroon wanted all along?

Isn't it?

Branmer leaves him to a ritual that he cares little for. Neroon's heart simply isn't in it; he intones the words utterly without meaning and gives up halfway through. He tries to concentrate on the glorious dawn of the battle to come - the last battle, on the way to the Human homeworld, to eradicate their defences once and for all - and he can't find any joy in it. It seems the Human has desecrated even that.

So, for the first since his boyhood, since he largely lost his taste for religion, Neroon prays. If there's any justice in the universe, he thinks, then let this final battle _right this_.

Later, much later, when he finds out the big secret behind Humans and Minbari, he will find that it's possible the universe heard him after all, and warned him to be careful what he wished for.


End file.
